Historic Meet Light @ Hong Kong Island Mid Level2023.09.05 Makalin Wongchinchai This year, Hong Kong Lighting Detectives organized a night walk event at Hong Kong Island Mid-Level. We invited some college students and designers to join us. Let’ s explore the night walk with us and see when historic lights meet. Detectives explored the special relationshipand imapct lighting in the architectural environment . The old central area of Hollywood Road in Hong Kong is well known for its rich architectural heritage, featuring a mix of Eastern and Western styles that reflects its colonial past. We have curated a route that allows us to discover some of the most significant historic and modern-day elements. In addition, a walk through the Sun Yat-sen Historical Trail, where we can still find traces of his revolution left on this land. This time, we invited college students and designers . As we were exploring the historical site, we found that the route was relatively dark . Most of heritage architectures, such as medical sciences museum, Man Mo temple or the stairs during the night walk, don’t have lighting. So it makes these heritage buildings disappear at night and creates the dark area on the stairs, which makes it difficult and unsafe to walk through these stairs. The light trespass and glare are also the main issues in this area where you may know that Hong Kong is one of the cities with the most light…

Once every two years「Light & Building」, the world’s largest lighting trade fair, opens in Frankfurt and I always make a point of attending. This year was no different, as my fourth time to attend, along with five colligates from LPA; we took up residence in Frankfurt for three days. The Frankfurt trade fair started just eight years ago, but its predecessor was the Hanover trade fair. I used to attend that fair as well and it just seemed like a fun time. All trade fair event halls are the same crowd of people poking around the booths until they are bushed, but the Frankfurt trade fair has a different feel. Like Europe in the springtime when fresh white asparagus should begin showing up on the menu, I just can’t not go! I said we were at the exhibition for three days, but really its only two and you can’t do much in two days. I leave the combing of the huge event hall to the younger staff and I seem to network more than I look at the fixtures. I am thrilled to see old friends from the lighting profession again. Just prowling around the exhibition hall and I’m bound to be tapped on the shoulder or suddenly hugged or hear my name called from afar, endless boisterous encounters. There are also those encounters that I don’t try to initiate or avoid altogether, but sometimes there is no other choice….

Already it has been seven years since I started to teach in the Department of Scenography, Display, and Fashion Design at Musashino Art University. Of course, I am not only teaching my students about lighting design, but the third-year students who choose my seminar class observe society and work on projects through a filter of “light”. This could be a politically biased education, but lighting is absolutely necessary in every aspect of our lives. Particularly in this department, I can’t image scenography, display, or fashion design without light and if my politically biased lighting education helps to nurture a unique human resource then fantastic! This year, with my third-year students in tow, we visited Iwamuro Hot Spring in Niigata Prefecture a number of times to work on a lighting project to boost economic development in the area. You can think of this as a modern group project by Musashino Art U. for the economical development of this hot spring town. From street planning, graphic design, and souvenirs to street furniture and the soundscape, we have incorporated a wide range of variables as we push this project along. Our team prose was “A Lighting Plan for Environmental Design” employed with proposals for extensive lighting designs. On two of our three previous trips, we surveyed the area and did lighting experiments. For the future of Iwamuro Hot Springs it is uncertain what kind of lighting they will propose, but my students were…

It is an island of light floating in the desert. Lighting technology in Las Vegas is not sedentary, but reinventing itself daily. How can we seize the inviting eyes of visitors? What is attractive lighting? In this place, day is night and night is day. Everybody’s internal clock has goes haywire. From the top of the Stratosphere Tower, the lights of The Strip appear out of the black desert, like the lights of a spacestation. Exterior lighting of the Venetian Resort Hotel. Tourists sit in front of casino slot machines 24 hours a day with no perception of time, since even during the day the interior is keep fairly dark.

Interviewer:　Mayumi Banno Theme：The Herbivorous Younger Generation Banno　For a change, I`d like to talk about the younger generation today and their nickname as “herbivores” or “introverts.” Since I have been with LPA, I have had the opportunity to travel abroad often on business trips. Especially in China, you can really feel the energy, vitality, and an air of excitement, almost the opposite of Japanese society. The current status of Japan scares me as businesses are getting harder to expand and the need to look at foreign markets is building. However, this younger generation of herbivores and introverts is also growing. The future of Japan is a little worrisome. Mr. Mende, you are anything but an herbivore. Were you already thinking outside of Japan in your 20`s? Mende　Well, for starters, I really love my work and it doesn`t really matter if it is in Japan or another country. However, the approach to projects in Japan is different and of course, the language is different. This can get messy and cause a lot of headaches, but if you slowly increase your vocabulary, it can really be a thrilling opportunity. I have always had a rich sense of curiosity, so this challenge just inspires me to move forward. In other words, it depends on whether one is willing to repeat over and over again these “small adventures” that make up our life. Nowadays, the young generation is hooked on the internet. Everything comes off…