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 site and Building Has Started. Does the architect mention that, some time soon, the electricians will want to know things like ‘Where do you want your light fittings, missus?’ No – of course he doesn’t. He does architecty things like staring at the clouds – doing a bit of blue-sky thinking – until the contractor pokes him with his measuring stick and says ‘Where does the missus want her light fittings, zir? Because we’ll be wanting to do first-fix cabling in a couple of weeks.’
Cue architect’s conversation with Mr and Mrs Client; ‘Where would you like your light fittings, missus?’ Now, it’s very unlikely that Mr and Mrs Client will have the first idea about how they want their lighting to work, let alone be aware of the bear-trap of Part L that’s likely to come their way if they’ve got a stroppy planning department.
Fade to: ‘Hello John. We’re building a new house and need some help with our lighting. Are you interested and how much will you cost?’ Angelic music to my ear, especially in these straitened times. But – how much time did you say we’ve got; a couple of weeks? Well, it was a couple of weeks, but that was a week ago and the contractors are making expensive-sounding grumpy noises.
Here’s the crunch: the architect says the job can’t wait for a decent lighting design, even its just a lighting designer pointing at bits of wall and ceiling and saying ‘over there somewhere’. No, the client has had to resort to Books and work it out as best they can. This is not good enough, my friends. Not by a long way is this good enough.
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