Environmentally Friendliness Interviewer: Sherri Goh Mende: So are we talking about environmentally friendly lighting design or environmental friendliness in lighting design…? Sherri: I’m not sure if I explained the topic clearly to you as there is a wide spectrum to be discussed. As we both have experience in Product Design and whether we consider that in what we do for lighting design. I wanted to ask what do you think/when did you start thinking of environmentally friendly lighting design. Mende: I have a Master’s degree in Environmental Design. After 4 years of studying Industrial Design, I changed my mind, as it was about designing very short shelf-life products, which is like garbage. Sherri: Lighting design has been meaningful, and you do consider the environment in terms of how we place the light. But I do think it could go further by considering how each product is produced from specific manufacturers and consider the manufacturing process. I’m not sure if LED fixtures are really more environmentally friendly than its predecessors, so that is the approach I had for this topic of discussion. Mende: Lighting design needs many sophisticated lighting fixtures as tools. But physically, we don’t need any product or lighting tools when making indirect light, or we can finally provide for natural daylighting. This is the goal of architectural lighting design. Sherri: Do you think we should consider who we work with and their production methods of fixtures in the…

Published：Dec.05, 2017 ・Activity 1／Lighting Survey：Mumbai （2017/10/02-10/07） ・Activity 2／Lighting Survey：Kagoshima （2017/10/25-10/27） ・Activity 3／Shomei Tanteidan descend on Ueno Park vol.2 （2017/10/16,11/13-11/14） Newsletter vol.84　Download PDF Lighting Survey in Mumbai 2017/10/02-10/07　　Mikine Yamamoto + Leon Hitsu　 We researched the biggest economic city of India, Mumbai. It is located west coast of India, which was used to call Bombay. This is the second time we researched this city since we last did in 2004. The goal of this research is to compare how its architecture and lighting have developed, and to compare with Navi Mumbai (New Bombay) developed as a new city of Mumbai. Dhobi Ghat is an outdoor laundry with more than 100 years of history. It is used as a laundry in the daytime, though people lived there and felt a sense of life in the nighttime. The contrast with the skyscraper in the background is very Indian. The building in front of the station. Building was carefully lit up with orange color. Mounting details. The hood was installed in the fixture in order to avoid glare when seen from the front Arriving at Mumbai hotel after the sunset, from the taxi on the way to the hotel, I only saw street lights that lit the street, and the city that was on the background looked dark and sunken. We expected that it was developed like China where a number of buildings lit up, but there was no building that was illuminated. The situation…

Date: May 14-June 9, 2003Place: Matsuya Ginza 7F Design Gallery 1953Host: Japan Design Committee World Lighting Journey’ a collection of nightscapes from 50 cities around the world, taken over the course of 12 years, was exhibited in Ginza. During the exhibition period 7 members of the LPA staff were on hand to give seminars to visitors enjoying the wall-to-wall collection of photographs. Date and Theme May 14 Yutaka Inaba（LPA / Detective） Shanghai May 21 Hideto Mori（ LPA / Detective ） Lyon May 23 Mari Kubota（ LPA / Detective ） Las Vegas May 27 Kentaro Tanaka（ LPA / Detective ） Bergen May 30 Ryuichi Sawada（ LPA / Detective ） Venice May 03 Hirohito Totsune（ LPA / Detective ） Dubai June 06 Kaoru Mende（LPA Principal / Chief） Conclusion

Published：05.July 2016 ・Activity 1／The 53rd City Night Walk in Yokohama Bashamichi and Isezaki-cho（18/03/2016） ・Activity 2／The 51st Regular Round Table Discussion（01/04/2016） The 53rd City Night Walk in Yokohama Bashamichi and Isezaki-cho 18.March.2016　　Yuki Takeuchi + Eiki Takeuchi + Ginko Mochizuki + Huang Simen + Shinichi Sakaguchi We divided into two groups walked in Bashamichi and the other two in Isezaki-cho, Northside and Eastside of JR Kannai Station in Yokohama. Those two areas are geographically close but have different characters. ■Over 150 years old gas lamps and early modern architectures create nostalgic scenarios in Bashamichi. Most elements and buildings have been modernized to suit for urban life style in Isezaki-cho. Both Bashamichi and Isezaki-cho are on the same stretch of the city, but have totally in contrast of these characters. We started exploring those two areas to find Heroes and Villains of light, and to reveal what kind of light defines the character of each area. Contrast between gas lamp and shop interior light. ■Bashamichi Area Bashamichi was the first place that gas lamps were installed in Japan. Before those gas lamps were produced in Japan, people carried portable lanterns with candle light. We started the walk, imagining how people felt when they saw gas lamps at the first time. Group 1 started at Kannai Station. Arriving at Bashamichi and walking further down to the junction, first light to note was stadium lighting. We still had a long distance to Yokohama Stadium though,…

World Lighting Journey 2019  Annual Report, A chief interview 2020.02.26　　Erina Hosono We interviewed Shomei Tanteidan Leader Mr. Mende this year again as an annual round up to our weekly World Lighting Journey postings in 2019 to the Shomei Tanteidan Facebook. Our Leader Mr. Mende looking back at the posts of the year. The most reacted image: Stockholm Subway Mende：So, our conclusion from last year’s World Lighting Journey (WLJ) was “Let’s upload more natural light”, how did everyone react to that? ―It doesn’t seem that posts that featured only natural lighting was that much more popular. Mende：So then, which photos where more popular? (Looks through the data of our 2019 Facebook postings) I see, it seem that images that show scenes that are rare or haven’t been seen by Japanese seemed to incite a bigger response. ―Mr. Lin’s photo of the subway station in Stockholm and Mr. Hattori’s photos of Italy and the Vatican had the most reactions Mende：The photo of the subway itself is very impactful, that’s probably why it is capable of garnering such attention. I always enjoy Mr. Hattori’s photos as they always capture how people and lighting interact. Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican City, The interplay between dynamic light and shadow ―Mr. Itakura’s photo taken in the air that looks like Anthony Mccall’s artwork also gathered some attention Mende：It must have left an impression, because you rarely see places with such strong natural light in Japan. Have…