Date of Issue：24 February 2019
・Activity1／Night Walk @Singapore Botanic Gardens （2018/10/11）
・Activity2／Night Walk @Marina Bay for Professionals（2018/10/26）
Night Walk @Singapore Botanic Gardens
Landscape and Parks
2018/10/11 Mayumi Banno＋Sunyoung Hwang ri Goh
Two walks in the month of October with professionals from the landscape and lighting industry. One in the real nature and the other in the concrete jungle!
Group picture at the wrap-up session!
This end of year had us finishing off with 2 walks in the exciting month of October!
We had a walk at Singapore Botanic Gardens where it was the first time that we solely focussed on inviting professionals to participate. Shortly after that, we conducted another Heroes and Villains walk at Marina Bay in conjunction with PLDC Singapore 2018.
Measuring lux levels at the visitor’s entrance
Heroes and Villains review!
On the way to the Bandstand for the Guerilla light-up activity.
■Singapore Botanic Gardens Walk
On Thursday 11th October, Lighting Detectives Singapore chapter organised a walk to the only UNESCO World Heritage Site on the sunny island, Singapore Botanic Gardens. Only recently awarded the title in 2015, the garden consists of three lakes, the signature National Orchid Garden and a Rainforest amongst many other attractions. It is also the third garden in the world to be listed as a World Heritage Site.
Landscape and Parks was our theme for the third walk and we wanted to examine what was so different in the lighting environment of the nation’s pride and joy and how the government balances the concern they have for the wildlife in the jungle there.
Invites were sent out via email to many landscape architect teams that work with our members in order to explore a dialogue of a different kind. The response we received was overwhelming; landscape architects from many firms such as Element Design and DPA joined us and even developers from Sentosa Development Corporation and members of the local government board NParks expressed their interest.
We had 16 participants join us for the walk, and 2 of which were from the general public. Walking as one big group, we started with an introduction to Lighting Detectives and some questions to guide the dialogue. We had a guerilla light-up activity at the Bandstand to show the effects of different coloured light and how it can change the mood of a place, followed by a tree uplighting session using torch lights that required more attendee participation. We provided high-powered torchlights and coloured filter paper for them to play around.
Our wrap-up discussion was held at a restaurant, Fusion Spoon, at one of the visitor entrances. It was also our first time to initiate the use o f Facebook event as a platform for the upload and collation of Heroes and Villains pictures with comments. This was highly successful and even allowed for post-event discussions online and created more awareness of our social media presence. It was a fruitful dialogue that provioded insights to the special attention paid to the design and maintenance of the park, and their consideration for the inhabiting wildlife using a dark lighting environment that was also glare-free and consistent in maintenance. Many participants left with appreciative feedback of such an event and assured that they would be keen to participate in our future walks!
Night Walk @Marina Bay for Professional
2018/10/26 Mayumi Banno＋Sunyoung Hwang + Sherri Goh
Group picture at the start of the walk!
Introduction to Lighting Detectives
Discussion at the commonly chosen Hero of tree uplight
Interesting conversations about the skyline of the bay area.
■PLDC Professional Walk at Marina Bay
The first PLDC (Professional Lighting Design convention) outside of Europe was held in Singapore on the 25-27th October 2018. There were moderated discussions, pre-convention meetings, conferences, exhibitions, evening walks and rounding off with a gala event.
Singapore Lighting Detectives initiated a Heroes and Villains night walk at Marina Bay in conjunction with the PLDC as an opportunity to interact with lighting designers from all over the world. It was a nice contrast to our first walk held in the same area to keep track of the progress made in the entire year, aside from different perspectives.
We started with 15 participants at Marina Bay Sands Rain Oculus sculpture that comprised of lighting designers, educators, manufacturers and even a couple from the general public.
It was natural for many of the participants to pick up details of the lighting environment whilst the majority of time was spent discussion the nightscape of Marina Bay from a visitor point-of -view in comparison to various places around the world.
It was interesting to note that there were many similar pictures chosen from the participants as their Hero and Villain, but with very different perspectives. One common hero was the tree uplights along Marina Bay Sands, and the consistent villain was that of different colour temperature for the steps along the promenade.
We also created suggestion/comment boards for the overall picture of the nightscape in our individual groups at the discussion point. The laser show was a point of contention with clashing views. However, most agreed that the signage lighting of the skyscrapers were too harsh.
The nightscape as an overall view was well received and there were many comments on the successful control and implementation of the lighting masterplan. It was a special weekend where most buildings had purple festive lights in lieu of the Purple Parade supporting abilities of persons with special needs.
All in all, the event was a success and we hope to see many new members and similar initiatives happening around the world!
Sherri’s group at the discussion venue.
Mayumi’s group in serious contemplation
Sunyoung’s group doing the uploading of Heroes and Villains
