John Bullock Lighting Design
Phone:
+44(0)1935 812447
Mobile:
+44(0)7970 025924
Email:
jb@jb-ld.co.uk
A (very) basic guide to ethical specification
Looking at the construction sector today it’s pretty clear that there are two types of ethical pressure; it either comes from the client who, for whatever reason – and there are many – wants to ensure that their project(s) confirm w...
29-03-2023
Lighting design: it's a client thing
One of the things that we talked about at the Circular Lighting Live 2022 conference in London on Thursday was the importance of bringing the client with you – and the need for us to understand what the client is looking to achieve before we ca...
29-03-2023
Calculating obtrusive light: whose job is it?
Obtrusive light. What is it and why are we increasingly being asked to calculate it? More to the point, why is it something that more manufacturers are being asked for. I mean . . . . what’s going on? Surely, that’s the job of the lightin...
29-03-2023
When there's nothing in the catalogue
There are times . . . and I mean this quite literally, when there is nothing in any catalogie that fits the bill. I know that manufacturers have to deal with the commercial end of things, so there is often a commonplace feel about what's...
30-05-2017
When is a chandelier not a pendant? When its a lantern!
Dictionary definitions first: Chandelier: a large, decorative hanging light with branches for several light bulbs or candles. Pendant: a lone light fixture that hangs from the ceiling usually suspended by a cord, chain, or metal rod ...
16-02-2017
When clients learn too much . . .
This is how it usually goes when a lighting designer sits in front of a client, selling a project concept. “No – there’s nothing to worry about on that score. We’ll only be specifying standard product – nothing bespoke a...
04-02-2017
One of our details is missing
Let's talk about what happens when new technology means that we can do Less with More – and not in a good way. The most exciting part of any new project must be the moment that you can open the lid in the corner of the room marked &...
03-02-2017
Where will light fittings come from?
With so much attention being paid to the Internet of Things; systems connectivity; data harvesting; customer tracking and the like – and all of it being achieved via the lighting installation, should we be concerned that so little attention is ...
23-01-2017
The end of the light bulb?
I was talking to an industry insider the other day about the future of the light bulb - and I’m using the vernacular deliberately to describe a lamp because I think it hits home harder. Lighting professionals talk about ‘lamps’ in t...
14-01-2017
Always something new . . . again
One of my standard wake-up lines to clients has always been ‘I’m not really interested in light fittings’. It seems the obvious ploy when conversations look as though they’re about to veer off into the realm of weekend supplem...
05-01-2017
Always something new . . .
When lighting changes shape, there's always somewhere new to go . . . The world is getting used to LEDs and there's already a sense of ennui creeping in; we can see what it can do, there's been some interesting stuff - now can w...
24-12-2016
Combining old and new
There's no need to think that, because something is 'old, 'traditional', 'heritage' that it can't benefit from a technical upgrade. Here's an example of a Victorian/Edwardian classic, usually fitted with a glass g...
20-12-2016
On being in the dark . . .
I’ve decided that I don’t like going to work in the dark. At the time of writing, I’m sitting on an early train to London, for a 9.00am meeting in the Great Wen. The view from the train windows is . . . blackness, and it brings a co...
16-01-2016
Riffing The Internet of Things
LUX Review webinar 06.jan.16: The Internet of Things and Lighting I’ve been sniffy on the subject of the Internet of Things (IoT) before and the jury is still out on how this connective/communicative technology will ulti...
08-01-2016
Designing Without Downlights - redux
It’s been a year since I first introduced this topic and I’ve been surprised at the level of support that I’ve had for the subject - its become a regular feature of my seminar schedule and will have its latest outing at the forthcom...
07-10-2015
Who's been giving Luddism a Bad Name?
featuring a guest edit by Clifton Lemon Luddism today remains a perjorative term intended pretty much to marginalize anyone who questions, fears, ignores, or ridicules new technology. And that was pretty much its intended function when i...
06-08-2015
Talking about Conservation lighting
In the course of a series of seminars to RIBA architects on the current trends in lighting design and technology I’ve been picking up on feedback from the delegates. Something that’s caught my eye is the issue of lighting for conservation...
03-08-2015
Connecting lighting to everything
This piece of writing came out of a conversation with a friend in San Francisco; we've been tossing the argument back and forth about the current state of the global lighting industry. There is a growing impetus, brought about by electronics comp...
13-07-2015
May Design Series 2015 - Designing Without Downlights
Yes - it was standing room only and broken furniture for my talk on Designing Without Downlights at May Design Series yesterday. Wild times. If you were one of th...
18-05-2015
In Search of Planned Adolescence
Warning! This article is (probably) gender specific – I think I’m only talking about MEN. But if any women readers feel that they want to lay claim to the attitudes described here, feel free.. This stuff about Smart...
20-03-2015
What is it you want again?
I've been asked to write a piece for The Society of Professional Engineers newsletter. I thought it was going to be one of my usual pieces, talking about the things that I usually talk about - but it turned into something a bit more; not exactly ...
13-01-2015
Big and Bold doesn't sound like a downlight to me!
This comes all the way from Connecticut, courtesy of The Western Sun - so it must be true! According to the style-meisters at The Western Sun, 2015 will see home lighting for the bathroom go far beyond functionality and clients will instead be loo...
08-01-2015
Getting into a Spin
We have to get used to the introduction of new terms in the Lexicon of Modern Living, but sometimes it just gets too confusing. And when the new meaning overlaps with an old meaning, all logic and sense takes a holiday. Why ever should a Sports Club ...
24-12-2014
Learning to love - Decoration
Lighting Design and the Art of Decoration Maybe this will turn into a mini-series of things that we never thought we'd think about; we'll see how we go. And perhaps its because I share my life with an artist and maker who's managed ...
05-12-2014
The Art of Vibration
Now here is something to share with everyone. Its all about vibration. Light is vibration. Colour is vibration. Sound is vibration. Just settle back and let it unfold. Thank you Ruben. POST by Ruben Mandolini....
27-11-2014
Designing without Downlights
You know when you read something that's apparently completely unconnected to what you're working on, and then the light bulb in your head goes on and you say: "Hang on a minute!" That happened at the weekend, reading a piece by Oliv...
17-11-2014
Turning the building round
Sometimes it takes a bit of lateral thought to come to a lighting solution. Creative Lighting Design for a Creative School Environment This project is the Reception Hall of Woodroffe School, an Arts and Crafts building in Dorset. Around twenty-...
06-11-2014
The Fine Details of Home Lighting
One of the great things about home lighting design is that is can be fun - interesting - challenging - depending on the circumstances. All within a single thought process, the designer is working at the scale of the entire building while balancing...
29-10-2014
Office lighting: Sometimes its very simple
The brief is straightforward - "can you find us a light fixture to highlight the graphics that look out from our building through the main entrance?" If you know what the outcome is meant to be, its only a case of finding the best fixtur...
11-10-2014
A new idea - a new conference
Exciting times: I've been invited to join these guys to act as Organiser and Chief Operating Officer for a new style of lighting event, to be called The Lighting Solutions Conference and Awards. Its an ...
03-10-2014
New lighting at Dorset County Museum
For all those music lovers who already know that the Victorian Gallery in the Dorset County Museum is the best performance space in town . . . great news! After many years of hoping and believing, it's finally happening; new performance lighti...
15-09-2014
Something stirring in the flower beds
There's nothing I like more than a decent collaboration, so I'd like to thank Kevin Brown of The Metal Workshop in Yeovil (01935 422346) for his creative efforts in raising what could have been a boring and unexceptional bit of lighting into ...
15-09-2014
Writing about Part L: 2014
I've been asked to write a commentary on this year's changes to Part L 'Conservation of Fuel and Power' for my good friends at greenspec.co.uk - the go-to website for all things to do with sustainable contrsuction and architectural de...
13-08-2014
Give me the moonlight?
New residents of Sherborne might have been surprised last week to see a second moon in the sky. Of course, us old hands recognised it for what it was - the film makers are back in town. This time around its for a scene in Wolf Hall, being produced...
05-08-2014
Lighting control in the home
I've just joined the connected 21st century - I can now control my home lighting via my phone. How did that happen?? The options to control one's home lighting, beyond a switch by the door, have grown like topsy as computing technology has...
21-07-2014
Introducing The Light Review
There are skills that a lighting designer accumulates across the years, and one of those is the ability to look at a light fitting and decide whether its worth the effort of specifying it or not. I'm hoping to make use of those skills via a ne...
16-07-2014
How To Design without Downlights
I've been asked to present a talk at LUXLive on "How To Design Without Downlights". (4pm on Wednesday 19th November; see you there) {IMG} And why is this important? Well - its another opportunity for me to restore my karmic balan...
10-07-2014
Time for a FaceLift !
If bits of the website are looking a bit strange at the moment its because we've had to move all the furniture around - we've got the decorators in! The website has performed fantastically well for over ten years (!) but now its time to embr...
26-06-2014
Blogs Summer 2014
Carry On Up the Lampshade I've been doing a bit of historical research, and have come up with an astonishing find . . Follow John Bullock Lighting Design's board Lampshades and Joan Sims on Pinterest. 26.may.14 Presenting The Rule...
31-05-2014
Trousers and Illuminant Metameric Failure
This is about not forgetting the fundamentals or ever imagining that someone else will take care of the fundamentals for you. It's often said that we don't know what we've got til it's gone; that we choose to live in blissful ignoranc...
17-04-2014
Blogs Winter 2013
Wonders of the Modern Age ... Every once in a while it does you good to stop, re-focus, and say "Coo - Would You Look At That!". In terms of design tools this has been the year of SketchUp. If ever there's been a simple tool to knoc...
31-12-2013
Blogs Summer 2013
Back in the summer of 2013 . . . And the entertainment that is colour-changing goes on: Brand new architect-designed kiosks on display throughout the summer in the Lower Gardens, Bournemout...
30-09-2013
Maybe not so Clever?
Now: I certainly don't want to get on the wrong side of Apple's legal beagles, but I can't help but be concerned at the image looking out at me from the centrespread of today's Guardian newspaper (that's Friday 12th July 2013 for ...
12-07-2013
Blogs May - June 2013
June - Best of Townhill Studio While I get on with my stuff, Annabel is producing wonderful plant images via her textile designs and shibori-dyeing techniques at Townhill Studio. While we were shooting the latest video Holly (Moonstruck Films...
30-06-2013
The Meat in the Sandwich
Office lighting is fast becoming the meat in the sandwich in a row that's developing between the providers of the two principal lighting sources for these sectors: so its LED versus fluorescent lighting, and its the clients who are being put thro...
31-05-2013
Down Memory Lane 1
As time goes on, and short-term memory becomes less secure, the mind is tempted to slip its moorings and wander back to those golden days of lighting design - before anyone really knew what was going on. And one of the results of moving h...
30-04-2013
LEDS and Lighting Art
2013 opened with a shock for the LED industry with a scientific report accusing LEDs of altering the colour of pigments in Van Gogh's masterpiece Sunflowers. There has been general consternation and cries of it cannot be true, but we have to ac...
18-01-2013
Lighting in Retail Malls
A friend asked me for a quick statement on lighting strategies for retail malls. I said: Lighting design is about people, not about buildings. It's about the way that people relate to their environment, and how well that environment reflects b...
20-11-2011
Making sense of LED product quality
Knowing whether an LED luminaire is any good at doing what it says on the tin has long been a bugbear of the lighting specifier, so we are all grateful to the Lighting Industry Liaison Group for coming up with Guidelines for Specification of LED Ligh...
21-06-2011
LEDs and Lighting Buildings
I�ve been asked if LEDs have made any difference to the illumination of buildings (that's on the outside - not on the inside!) So here�s a brief rundown of how we got to where we are �.. The History of Lighting Buildings � an import...
15-04-2011
Time; Please!
I was sitting in Dorchester�s most popular coffee-house-to-be-seen-in, talking with a local glass artist about all things glass and lighting, when I heard these words come from my mouth: �Of course, it�s all about the vital role that the fourth...
04-10-2010
LEDs - now this is getting interesting: the sequel!
I started to hear a few murmurs about how electricity meters might work, and whether they really measure the current that results from equipment having a low power factor - and so recording higher energy consumption. Yesterday, I final...
18-08-2010
LEDs - now this is getting complicated!
Unless you've had some sort of training in electrical principles, this may get a bit awkward, so I'll try to keep it simple. But there's trouble brewing and I think we should get this out in the open - and it's about LEDs. In the d...
12-08-2010
New jb-ld Sustainable Lighting leaflet
Here's my latest information leaflet for you. We're talking about low energy design - taking a sustainable approach to building design - and producing top-notch lighting design. Print it out - stick it on the wall - take it home to show...
28-07-2010
jb-ld Introductory leaflet
You can download a copy of my introductory leaflet that explains the benefit of independent lighting design advice....
28-07-2010
Let's Hear it for the Music!
This is absolutely nothing to do with lighting design, but everything to do with the other side of my life, and that's performing live music. My happy combo - y'Strel's Band - will be performing around the towns and villages of Dorset ...
28-07-2010
Nothing left for tomorrow!
Picture the scene � its Sunday afternoon and there�s an open box of Milk Tray on the table and Billy Cotton is on the wireless. Although I�ve already eaten quite enough, thank you very much, I really really really want another chocolate, probab...
13-07-2010
The Case of the Glass on the Table
Here�s a prophecy for you; within the next few years you�re going to see electricity prices rise � and go on rising. And as the installation of smart meters rolls out through the country, the electricity companies will find ever more ingenious ...
14-05-2010
A Plea from the Heart
I've just put the phone down from one of those 'with regret' conversations; a client that's not sure ... has some doubts ... and is being hassled by the contractors for lighting layouts. The job's due for completion in July - I su...
31-03-2010
A Tragedy of Errors
I'm a person who prefers to see the best in people - one who believes that our species' evolution stretches ahead into the future, peppered with the brilliance of human invention. It also means that, when things don't go according to plan...
23-03-2010
By the Power of Zhaga!
The Zhaga standards � from a new organisation made up of top lighting manufacturers � aim to �give consumers confidence to specify and purchase LED products ...� �So, Mr. Bond � we meet at last.� �Damn you, Zhaga. But you�ll n...
22-02-2010
Getting it WHITE!
In an ideal world, there�d probably only be one White � then at least the architects would be happy. But we live in relativistic times and White is no exception. There are �Warm Whites� and there are �Cool Whites� and �Daylight Whitesï¿...
17-02-2010
Lighting Specification and Electrical Design
The Electrical Safety Council recently published an article entitled 'ELECTRICAL INSTALLATION WORK - WHO IS THE DESIGNER? (page 7 of Switched On - Issue 15). I've always taken the time to explain gently to clien...
17-02-2010
A Proclamation to the People
The exhibition season is surely upon us and the halls are filled with glorious, sparkly doings � everything decked out in its very best energy-saving and sustainable splendour. A recent exhibition experience was so overwhelmingly positive and lif...
05-02-2010
Will the Real Designer please step forward?
Another magazine drops through the letterbox and, courtesy of the general economic gloom, I have plenty of time to flick through the pages before going into the kitchen for another cup of tea. And what do I find - oh, joy of joys - but vindication of...
04-01-2010
Mesopic Park
Just when you thought it might be safe to go out at night, it turns out that we�ve all been seeing it wrong. How do I know this? Because of the work done by a bunch of Euro-boffins under the banner of the Mesopic Optimisation of Visual Efficiency p...
04-01-2010
In the Dark .... again
There are times when its like living in a parallel universe, where everyone seems to see the world in a completely different way. Like - for example - a news report from yesterday's newspaper telling me that the town of Toulouse is undertaking a ...
28-10-2009
Why I Love Light
For those who weren't at the LoveLight event last night - or for those of you who were there and don't feel you can survive without a copy of my funky riff: At the end of the movie, after Senator Rance Stoddard has told the real stor...
09-10-2009
And for the next hundred years ...
When did we realise that we had more than enough light and could start thinking about how we use it, rather than worrying all the time about not having enough? More to the point � when will we realise that we have enough light? The history of...
05-10-2009
Got the Blues for You
There are architectural features that appear all the time, and no one evers complains that they are hackneyed and over-used - things like doors, or ceilings. Wherever you go; what's that rectangular feature in the wall over there? Oh, that'll...
15-09-2009
Keeping it Local
There�s some interesting reading in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) � and that�s something that you didn�t expect to read when you woke up this morning. I�ve reached that age where I get grumpy about too-small text that gets written...
03-09-2009
Smart stuff
This is about low energy light sources � again. Now pay attention, because this may get a bit complicated; not a lot � but maybe just enough. The first thing: many of my peers have talked about the way that energy directives like Part L of the...
05-08-2009
Lazy Sunday Afternoons!
There must be better ways of spending a Sunday afternoon - especially when, for once, it's not raining. But needs must, as they insist on saying, and I've spent the afternoon working out how to set up a new survey form on the website. ...
02-08-2009
Its Difficult to Dance in Concrete Boots
{IMG} �Organised crime targets waste recycling� � The Guardian, dateline July 2009 As part of my training and development in �How to become a successful business manager', I was once sent out by my boss to collect a cheque from an e...
09-07-2009
What, this? Last for ever, mate!
Like one of those butterflies leaping about on the other side of the world that we blame for spoiling our bank holiday weather, I've been expecting the case of Peter Ward, that good man of Liversedge who took on the Tesco dragon and gave it a jol...
29-06-2009
Call Yourself a Lighting Designer?
{IMG} Crivvins, but there�s been rowdy behaviour in the quad with those nasty boys from Lighting Design causing trouble with those nice Electrical Engineer chappies. And now the head has got involved and there�ll be detentions for sure. It ...
24-05-2009
Raging at the Dyeing of the Light (Hah!)
I spent a hour or so last evening doing some DIY corrections on the colour output of a nice bit of Part-L-compatible CFL lighting above a client's dining room table. Now there are many who would claim that even attempting the use of CFLs in ...
02-05-2009
Whose side are you on
I see that the professional organisation to whom I pay an annual wedge � that�s the Society of Light and Lighting � have produced a new Handbook. Now I�ve always presumed that SLL is there to look after my interests, being a professional kind...
19-04-2009
What are LEDs for?
I saw my very first �architectural� LED about twenty years ago. It was small, and it was dim � but it was intriguing. The very small size of the semi-conductor source made them ideal for indicator lamps, but for architecture? We couldn�t see ...
27-03-2009
New lamps for old
Townhill Farm is a centre of creative excellence. And I work here, too; though when I�m outside I have to go about with a badge that reads �Designer � Beware�, just in case anyone mistakes me for an artist. I�m just back from re-lamping ...
26-03-2009
When the music stops
A jester enters into the presence of the King: �Sire, thou wilst remember � for thy powers of recollection are unsurpassed throughout the kingdom � the band of minstrels that performed for her Majesty the Queen�s birthday celebrations last y...
23-02-2009
Job Planning, what job planning
Hello there! Mr Angry of Much Puffingham here. Where do architects get off letting their clients down when it comes to lighting design? Here�s what happened the other day; Mr and Mrs Client are building their dream home and have finally got onto...
13-02-2009
Lighting and the Disability Discrimination Act
The DDA makes it a requirement for employers and anyone offering services to the public to ensure that they do not discriminate against any person with a disability. And that includes those with any kind of visual impairment. As a lighting designer,...
24-10-2008
