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innovative design competition for street lighting

Team

Jeroen Ruijter

Jeroen.ruijter@hva.nl
Bauke Bakker

baukebakker@me.com
Alejandro Rodas

alexrdp90@gmail.com
Anna Triboli

anna.triboli@gmail.com
Niall MacKellar

niall.mac.kellar@hva.nl

Commissioner:

Description

Where did the Light Challenge bring us?

Feedbackmoment with the residents

During the third meeting with the residents of the Agavestraat we showed a presentation of our final concept. Our goal of this meeting was to get to know what the residents, our coach and the contact persons of the municipality thought of our concept and what kind of feedback they can give. To discover that we used the ‘shine & grow’ method: everyone writes on sticky paper what they find positive and negative about the final concept and after that we put all ideas together on one big paper. Then the different ideas must be categorized depending on their content: for example, suggestions to improve our aesthetic design, suggestions for the technical production and suggestions for extra elements we could add have to be placed together so we can structure the feedback. To include a more  interactive part with the residents we printed photos of the street with some illustrations of our concept in it, and asked the people to draw on it what they would like to add and what they would like to change. We told that we have a final concept but that this doesn’t mean that it’s finished yet. Feedback from communication with the residents is always useful when rethinking a concept over and over again.

Masterclass Almere: Presentations in the city hall

After the visit to the Tendris factory we went to the city hall of Almere. Three presentations were held there. The first one was from the mayor of Almere, Annemarie Jorritsma. She told about the plans of Almere to become a more sustainable and green city, that really makes the people feel at ease. There are a lot of ethnic groups in the city with different cultures and interests, so the politics and the architecture of the city have the challenge to make all these different people have a good living quality in Almere.

Some projects were mentioned, like the art project of Studio Roosengaarde that consists of objects that glow in the dark and make a noise when people come close to it. Also a lot of street lights are being replaced by more efficient LED that can shine a specific color and set the mood of an area.

Above you can see a map that can be used to determine the direction of architecture and urban planning. Some people have wild plans for the future of our country’s youngest city, as we saw in the last presentation.

We were surprised when we saw a picture of ourselves in our own meeting with the people in Almere. The mayor was explaining that to determine your goal, you need to work together with the users of the city. In the end, it’s their living environment so as a politician, architect or urban designer you need to listen to their wishes and needs.

this complicated graphic shows all the factors that are important when talking about sustainability on planet earth. The conclusion is simple: we consume too much to keep on surviving in the future. Street light is an example of where you can begin to make our energy system more sustainable. How can we fight the light pollution that we currently have? Related to this, the second presentation was about a project in Cambodja were they wanted to make a light system for the  villagers. They work together intensively with the people and they asked them what their routines are during the night time. By using this information they designed a lamp that they could hang around their neck with a chord. This way the villagers always carried their own personal light, and this way you don’t need to put street lights everywhere that also illuminate when not necessary. This is project avoids light pollution in a sustainable way.

The third presentation was from Jeroen Zuidgeest, an architect who really has a passion for sustainable and ecological green projects. He showed us some ideas in which architecture and nature melt together and become one. For example in this picture, that is a combination of gardens and an apartment building. Imagine what Almere could look like when the ‘Almere Floriade’ is realised: a not yet existing park that contains all kinds of gardens and buildings combined together. The pictures in the presentation contained a lot of inspiration for the public lighting concepts that are worked on in the Light Challenge.

 

 

Visit to the Indal Industria factory in Emmen

 

3D model of Agavestraat

During the lasts weeks, we have been designing a 3D model of Agavestraat. This representation of the street helps us to visualize our concepts and see how they fit in the available spaces, as well as present them in a visual way. You can click on them to watch them in a larger size:

Research Report

To have a complete and general view of the subject we are working on we used different kinds of research methods, dividing them into qualitative and quantitative research. The desk research was structured into a theoretical part, based on literature review, and a more practical part thanks to the development of a 3D model of the Agavestraat. The field research was on the other hand divided in different categories, such as a mini focus group,  interviews, observation and a survey.

Safety                           Design                            Innovation                  Sustainability

After our research we found out that a lot of ideas have already been developed, but that there can still be an opportunity to create an effective and innovative idea. Combining the important sustainable and innovative perspectives with the social aspect and the information gathered from the street and its residents, it is possible to realize a new product and, at the same time, improve the social environment of the Agavestraat.

 


 

Visit to the Indal Industria factory in Emmen

To get an insight in the production of public lighting, our project supervisors took us to the Indal Industria factory in the city of Emmen. Klaas Faber, the account manager of the factory, shortly introduced the work of Indal in a presentation. He told that the factory had been taken over by Philips, but although this big company will have a lot of influence on the production, Indal still manages  to be very unique in the street lighting market: the production system that is used is very flexible and customer-orientated. This means that when receiving an order from a municipality or an investor, the factory will do their best to make the product as specific as possible. This flexibility is one of the key factors of the successful production of Indal. Furthermore he explained that the factory is currently switching to producing more LED light, which is called ‘ the light of the future’ because it is said to be more sustainable and effective than the older light systems.

While listening to the presentation, a lot of different street lights – with and without LED – were exposed in the same room, as you can see behind us.

In this picture you can see that the lamp in the middle of the whiteboard uses LED light. You can see it by the shape of the little light bulbs. Klaas Faber explained that you can reach different effects of LED light with color: you could for example use cool-, neutral- and warm white light. Deciding which color should be used depends on the wishes of the customers. Do you want the light to be nice and warm? Should it simply give more light then there is now in the area? Should it give the feeling of safety?

To compare, the street light at the right side can give a cosy feeling to a street: the design of this is a nostalgic one, but of course you can put modern LED light inside.

After the introduction we went to the working place, where we saw how the light product was crafted both by machines and human hands. Instead of being confronted with endless assembly lines, we saw people working intensively on creating the street lights out of raw material. Especially the very thin material of LED light panels requires a precise treatment. The different stadia of the production of a light and it’s armature were shown: the digital draft of the product, putting the LED lights together in the right spots, the aluminium shaping and cutting, powder coating of the aluminium to make the material resistant against the bad weather, implementing the light into the material, testing, putting the product into the packaging and then put them in the lorry to transport them.

In this picture you can see how the LED lights are put together to make them work effectively. The LEDs are delivered in strips, which looked a bit like film strips. The machines then put the tiny light sources in the right order, so they can be used in the specific products.

We learned a lot about the way street lights are crafted. Although we have to come up with our own concept, we can use our new knowledge as inspiration. We have seen the technologies to make common lights, but also the way that Indal experiments with technology and design. In the lighting industry, it’s always necessary to think about the future, because public lighting is a landscape that is changing very rapidly. In this picture you can see a design that we don’t see that much in the streets, but maybe we will see them appear more in the future, or maybe a light that is only based on this design. Light is never a finished product, because it can always be inspiration for new ideas.

Via the link  indal-lighting.nl you can find more information about the Philips Indal factory.

 

Brainstorming with Charlie Mulholland

Charlie Mulholland came to the MediaLAB to teach about brainstorming. He told that, according to the creative process-model of Tassoul, you are dealing with divergent and convergent thinking during the development of a project: in the first phase you are exploring a lot of information and theories, and in the second phase you will have to select the best ones to come to one clear point again. Un important aspect of brainstorming is that in most cases you are dealing with a ‘wicked problem’: a problem that is ill-defined. Therefore the first step is to know exactly what the problem is. While redefining the problem in your own words you can also look at the answers that don’t help. By this you can make your vision broader and see the problem from a different perspective. The next step is to decide who the stakeholders are. Come up with as much stakeholders as possible. Don’t be critical, just write them down!

So let’s use this model for our project, the Agavestraat. According to the Light Challenge 2013 the problem is that the lighting is not sustainable and innovative enough, and it never included any participation with the residents. If you take this problem in consideration once more, a logical question is: are these also the problems of the residents or do they have different issues? During our first meeting in Almere the residents told us that they do not always have a save feeling in the street, and for some people the street light is shining too powerful into their houses. When taking all this information together (convergent thinking), maybe we can come up with a better definition of the problem, for example: how can we renew the streetlight in the Agavestraat to be more sustainable and meaningful for the residents? In that way we captured the term ‘innovation’ in ‘renew’, sustainable is in this definition and in ‘meaningful’ the elements of savety and light-effectivity for the residents are included.

What are the negative ideas that won’t give a solution? Using a lot of light will certainly not be the right answer, because that doesn’t automatically make the street saver, and people will have too much light shining into their houses. Also we can’t use too much energy, because the government will have to spend too much money.

Who are our stakeholders? The most important ones are of course the residents, the Light Challenge and the municipality. But besides these three we can come up with more parties: ourselves, MediaLAB, companies that make material for street lights, investors, light artists, other visitors of the Agavestraat, people who leave nearby, animals, police and journalists.

 

 

Masterclass University of Twente

The first Masterclass was about teambuilding and brainstorming. It was held in Enschede, at the University of Twente. After having a coffee and talking to our coach, the light experts and the other teams that participate in the Light Challenge we went to the Smart Experience Lab. There we listened to four presentations. The first one was about teambuilding and was held by the coach of the Dames Waterpolo Team 2008, Robin van Galen. He told about the different phases of the Tuckman Theory: a theory to systemize your teambuilding. It is a useful way to deal with the different characters in a team, and to combine the best qualities of people in order to realize the main goal, in our case: to win the challenge. The second presentation was held by one of the winners of the Light Challenge 2011. She told the story about her winning concept, The TriON-concept in Assen: a new design of street light combined with the trees in the street. The trees blocked the light coming from the old lantarns, so they made a combination of the trees and a new light system. The other two presentations were held by men who worked at companies specialized in lighting concepts. They told about the concepts they developed, like a street light with colors that can be controlled by the residents, and an alternative way to light up a highway in a safe and sustainable way. This last concept was realised by a company called Tauw, you can find information about it here: tauw.com

After the break we held a brainstorm session together with our coach, with people working at companies and with light experts. Each one of us wrote down or drew his/her ideas for a specific concept in the Agavestraat. Not being held back by legislation and other restrictions, we came up with some creative concepts. One person in the brainstorm group suggested that we should combine our ideas. After that we were able to formulate a question which contained all of the elements that we wanted to pay attention to: make the street more cozy, more meaningful to residents and divide the light in a more effective way.

 

Visit to the Agavestraat