The Lighting Professional's Challenge: a conversation with Andrew Bissel

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A passionate conversation with Andrew Bissel at Light Middle East reveals the growing frustration among lighting professionals fighting for recognition in the built environment. Wearing multiple hats as Ridge and Partners' lighting design head, a dark sky consultant for Red Sea Global, and past president of the Society of Light and Lighting, Andrew delivers a candid assessment of where the industry stands today.

Quote of the day:

“We need this participation of advocates, we need the certification for a business model and we need the legislation from government to drive certain industries, because they won’t drive themselves. But you also need the lighting professional.” — Andrew Bissel

This interview was recorded at Light Middle East in Dubai in 2024. Although it's been a little over a year, the insights and expertise Andrew shares are timeless and incredibly relevant today.

The discussion highlights a painful truth: despite decades of education and advocacy, lighting remains "the forgotten person around the design table." As Andrew bluntly puts it, "Every poor project didn't have a lighting professional." After years of polite education, he suggests the time may have come for lighting experts to more assertively claim their rightful place in the design process.

Perhaps most fascinating is the exploration of how the industry has evolved beyond separating "dark sky specialists" from regular lighting designers. Today's professionals simply practice "responsible design" as standard. The conversation takes a thought-provoking turn when addressing how lighting organisations themselves might inadvertently reinforce industry silos rather than breaking them down. Could integrating lighting professionals throughout built environment events rather than segregating them into dedicated sections be the way forward?

For anyone invested in the future of lighting design, this discussion illuminates both challenges and potential pathways to elevating the profession's recognition across architecture, engineering, planning, and beyond. Join us in exploring how lighting professionals can finally secure their essential place at the design table.

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Episode Transcript

Amardeep Dugar (00:00):
Hello everyone.
This is Amardeep Dugar signingin for the Virtual Lighting
Design Community.
We are in Dubai again for theLight Middle East.
It's been a great show.
We have a beautiful and amazingbooth here and we have an
amazing guest with us for ourLight Talks to continue the
discussion about all the thingslighting.
So, andrew, can I ask you tointroduce yourself and say what

(00:21):
you do a little bit aboutyourself.

Andrew Bissel (00:23):
Yeah, sure, so, thank you.
I'm here with, uh, various hatson um, so I'm here as, uh, the
head of the lighting design teamfor ridge and partners.
We've been set up about 18months ago working on a whole
variety of projects prime,residential, hospitality, motor

(00:44):
racing projects, various otheroffice place work, but also dark
sky projects, which areprobably what we're known for
really at the moment.
The second reason I'm here isbecause we're working on the Red
Sea project as dark skyconsultants for Red Sea Global

(01:04):
and it worked really well to tiein a meeting with ruskin
hartley, with the client, andrewbates, and travel to site and
see the projects that arefinished, see some of the assets
that are halfway through andjust have a look at the good,
the bad and the ugly.
Where are we up to?
What's worked, what hasn, whathasn't, etc.
And that's been so worthwhile.

(01:25):
And it worked to go therebefore coming here on the basis
that it fitted with the mooncycles, we needed the moon below
the horizon, etc.
So this has all worked outnicely.
And then I'm also here.
I'm last year's President ofthe Society of Light and
Lighting.
This year the President isHelen Looms, but Brendan Keeley

(01:45):
is here as the secretary of theSociety of Light and Lighting
and we have a stand here just toraise awareness of the society
within this region, trying toattract new members, try and see
what our current members are upto, what help they need from us
, and I'm just helping Brendanout as and when he needs me.
So a really full two weeks.

Amardeep Dugar (02:06):
That's a lot of hats.
My god, you could be a championat multitasking.

Andrew Bissel (02:13):
I wouldn't say a champion at multitasking, forced
multitasking.

Amardeep Dugar (02:18):
So have you been to Light Middle East before?
Is this your first time?
Your second time?

Andrew Bissel (02:22):
First time at Light Middle East, middle east,
um, and, and it's impressive,it's, it's huge.
I mean, I mean obviously, uh,lights, this section is big, but
there are other sections.
You've got a smart buildingsection, we've got security
sections.
It's huge, but certainly thelight section is impressive,
really impressive.
And uh, manufacturers you know,and you've always known some of

(02:42):
them with, uh, things you'venot before.
Always worth coming to theseevents to see things you've not
seen before.
But then lots of manufacturersyou haven't heard of, yeah, you
may have seen their products,you may not, but you didn't know
it was theirs.
So, absolutely fantastic.
But I mean the talks, the ThinkLike conference, have really
been the icing on the cakeHighlight of the year.

(03:02):
Oh, for sure, because you cansee the products.
But then to hear from so manywonderful people you know them,
you know of them, you know oftheir work, but you're actually
listening to them.
There's Andrea and various otherpeople are talking at the
moment about setting up alighting business.
I mean that's not easy, yeah,yeah, yeah, that talk could go
on for weeks and I think thatthey have a keynote speaker.

(03:30):
Then they have five or sixother speakers come and give
slightly different takes.
I was involved in the Dark Skyone, but we then also had Ruskin
there from Dark SkyInternational, we had the client
Andrew Bates there from Red SeaGlobal, then we had various
lighting designers, so you know,to get all those different
takes on that same subject andthe questions from the audience.

(03:51):
Clearly this is somethingpeople are working on and they
want to know more about.
So absolute first-classconference, first-class
conference.

Amardeep Dugar (04:00):
Yeah, it has been really impressive.
And I've been here I think thisis probably my fifth time and
I've seen this thing grow andthe manner it has been grown.
You can actually make out fromthe size of the aisle spaces.
So they're just gettingnarrower and narrower, so you
can only say the booths aregetting bigger.
There are more and more boothsthat are happening.

Andrew Bissel (04:16):
And there are some really impressive booths
here.
You know, the sort of thing younormally only see at Frankfurt.
It's here, you know, so peopleare obviously investing in
coming here.
But as a lighting designer,it's brilliant, you know
everything's so close.
The smart technology section isreally useful to go into as
well, which is right next doorto the lighting, for obvious
reasons, so first-class place tobe.

Amardeep Dugar (04:39):
Great.
Now the conference.
You mentioned about theconference, the Think Light
conference.
The theme this year wasEnlightened Futures and they've
talked about responsibility.
Responsibility is a big wordand it's a very broad word.
Now, you've been a lightingdesigner.
You've had so many hats as apresident of a society, a leader

(05:00):
of your team, even things likeresponsibility of social and
environmental responsibility.
What are the ways?
How would you defineresponsibility?
It's so broad.

Andrew Bissel (05:11):
It incredibly broad and it it's actually quite
a frustration of mine and Idon't know if it's age or or if
it's wisdom, possibly age thelonger you're in the industry,
the more frustrated you get thatyou're learning all the time
about how how much of aninfluence light has on the
environment, on people, onwildlife, everything we touch,

(05:34):
everything.
You know without light, youknow what can you do and you
know it's uh, and therefore wehave such um, such an impact on,
on everything that everybodydoes, and yet it still seems to
be the forgotten person aroundthe design table.
You know, people have anopinion and they chuck it in no

(05:55):
knowledge, no training, noeducation.
They have an opinion.
Others guess you know, I'lltake a guess you know others
have an ego and they want tochuck something in and you're
sat there and you're justthinking when, when, when do we
reach a point?
As lighting professionals andthat was part of my talk when I
gave the keynote that you know,as part of dark skies, we need

(06:15):
this participation of advocates,we need the certification for a
business model and we need thelegislation from government to
drive certain industries,because they won't drive
themselves.
But you also need the lightingprofessional.
Yeah, every poor project didn'thave a lighting professional.
The one thing missing everypoor project didn't have a
lighting professional.
And the one thing missing everypoor project didn't have a
lighting professional.
And yet we're still saying this30 years.

(06:37):
We're still saying this and Ireally do think the industry
built environment industry hasto grow up and recognize they
have a responsibility to getthis right.
We, as lighting professionals,can sit as part of that table
and get this right.
We, as lighting professionals,can sit as part of that table
and get that right.
And for some reason and I'vethought about it long and hard

(06:59):
and I think I've been politeabout this issue for a long time
, but maybe age- is making mereach a point.
I think we need to just say stoptalking.
You don't know what you'retalking about, but there are a
lot of people who do and theywill make this better for
everybody who uses this buildingand space.
We can make this better.

(07:20):
You are making it no better.
Please, you know, stick to whatyou know and we'll stick to
what we know.
And I think we areunfortunately getting to that
point because I think we've doneenough education.
I think you know, you.
You look at VLDC, society ofLight and Light and
International Association ofLighting Designers, institution
of Lighting Professionals,lighting Industry Association.

(07:43):
We've got so many professionalbodies with so many
professionals, but we can'tquite find ourselves always on a
project, and we should alwaysbe on a project.
And so we've done enough.
We, we are educated, we areknowledgeable, you know
creatively, technically you knowand responsible.

(08:04):
We design responsibly.
You only have to listen to allthe talks you know, and one of
the themes yesterday there's nosuch thing anymore as a lighting
designer who does dark skyprojects and a lighting designer
who does non-dark sky projects.
We just do dark sky projects,we just do responsible design.
And that's what we're doing.
And I don't know what theanswer is.

(08:24):
I really wish I knew what theanswer was.
I guess we keep talking.
I guess we keep banging thedrum.
I guess we keep highlightingthe fabulous work that is done
by lighting professionals.
I was at a talk last year withthe Lighting Industry
Association.
Asia set up a beautiful lunchand AGM and I went to the lunch
and she managed to secure LordDeben as a speaker and he spoke

(08:48):
about sustainability andcircular economy.
Fabulous speaker.
No notes, no slides, slides.
Oh wow, true speed.
I mean it was one and youlistened.
There was no slides so youlisten and it was amazing, I
hadn't ever experienced thatbefore.
But but he actually stood atone point and said well, you are
the professionals in thelighting industry.

(09:08):
You can solve all of thelighting problems, whether it's
manufacturing, whether it'sdesign, whether lighting
problems, whether it'smanufacturing, whether it's
design, whether it's engineering, whether it's technology, you
can solve all this.
You understand people and eyesand emotions and biology.
You can solve it.
And here we are a year laterchatting about it again.
So let's find that magic trickand then deal with it.

Amardeep Dugar (09:29):
Now, I mean, you touched upon this topic about
we have a responsibility, butsomehow I don't know whether
it's something which I'm feelingin person, but the problem is
that we live in these silos andwe lighting professionals only
talk to lighting professionals.
Shouldn't we be talking alittle bit more?
Widening and broadening it, andthat was one of the reasons

(09:50):
where we worked on building thisvirtual lighting design
community.

Andrew Bissel (09:54):
Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head
in the sense that when I waspresident last year, I had three
things I wanted to look at.
I was very interested in how wehave more younger people doing
more within the society oflighting.
And we've now got Maria, who'slaunched the early career
community for the SLL, and weneed those people coming through

(10:18):
because they're the ones whoare going to have to take on
this mantle of how we getlighting as a profession more
accepted and out there.
So let's do that now.
And this seems to be alongthose same lines that you
haven't targeted the earlycareers, but you certainly are
attracted more of the earlycareers.
So that's great, that's reallypositive.

(10:39):
But the other idea for theSociety of Light and Lighting
for my presidential year wasDark Skies, which we talked
about a lot.
But the final thing was to getout there and talk to more
people.
Not talk to lighting designersbut or the lighting community,
but talk to um quantitysurveyors, project managers, um

(11:01):
architects, interior designers.
And it was the last thing I wasI targeted doing and in some
respects I ran out of time andI've carried on doing it this
year, in my past presidentialyear and I'll probably carry on
doing it for as long as slL arehappy for me to do so.
It's really difficult.
What I found is reallydifficult.
I did a quick survey and Iasked various different people

(11:22):
have you heard of ILD, sll, vldc?
Actually, very, very few hadheard of us.
Project managers, qss,architects very few, and the
most popular or recognised bodywas the Institution of Lighting
Professionals, and that wasamongst project managers and
planners who had had to dealwith light pollution, because

(11:46):
they have such a strong lightpollution guidance GN01, as we
all know.
So they were the ones who weremost well known because of
planning, not because of designor because something looks
pretty or works well ortechnically competent or all the
other things we know aboutlighting, your biology,
physiology, etc.
It was actually all to do withplanning and planning guidance.

(12:10):
So we've got a huge, huge, hugetask ahead of us.
I think things like this work.
I do wonder.
I mean, just based on what yousaid, I'm just throwing things
out there virtual lightingdesign community will attract
lighters.
Virtual design community mayattract the design community
that's, that's.
I'm not saying I'm not sayinglet's go and cross out the L

(12:32):
from your name right now, butyeah, isn't it just?
But is there a danger that SLL,ilp, lia, ild, ies, now VLDC?
Have we got six silos?
Yeah, are we actually evenworse?
Worse?
I don't think we are.

Amardeep Dugar (12:53):
I'm just chucking it out there, but it's
always good for you.

Andrew Bissel (12:54):
Let's explore.

Amardeep Dugar (12:55):
Let's be self-critical about it.

Andrew Bissel (12:56):
Let's explore.
Okay, how do we make sure youdon't have to join six
organizations to talk to allthese amazing people?
And then how do we all promoteeach other for the right reasons
and not compete?
We're on the same side, we areall on the same side.
We want the same side.
We are all on the same side.
We want the same thing.
How do we make sure thathappens?

(13:17):
It's a tough, tough task and oneof the things I found when I
was asking people.
So you ask bodies such as RICSor RTPI Royal Town Planning
Institute they're actually sobusy looking after their own
members.
The thought of having to set upan event with another body and
all the communication that isrequired.

(13:37):
It's complicated.
And do they have the resource?
Do any of us have the resource?
You know so and I know from SLLwe are maxed out in terms of
how much effort it takes to lookafter our members doing the
things we do and to reach out,and brendan did a fabulous job
with the roland conference, forexample, and that did include

(14:00):
other bodies, but but it reallytook up every ounce of his
energy and he had a two-week liedown afterwards.
It took up so much time toexplore other people to create
this most wonderful conferencethat included so many other
people.
Try now doing that with REBA,and then the equivalent in the

(14:20):
Middle East, and then theequivalent in Australia, and
then RICS and then RTPI.
Wow, what a task we've got onour hands.
What a task we've got on ourhands.
I don't have an answer, butthat is where we need to be.
As I said, I was helping out onthe Society of Light and
Lighting stand with Brendan andwe had somebody come to talk to

(14:41):
us about an event that might betaking place in Saudi Arabia in
September and it's a builtenvironment event and what's
interesting there is.
We asked about speaking slots.
How do SNL get involved?
How do the other lightingbodies get involved?
They said they don't want alighting section to the
conference.
They want everyone dispersedamongst each other and they want

(15:05):
every panel to have anarchitect and a lighting
designer and suddenly we werelike yes, that's where we need
to be.
Perhaps we ought to stop coming.
This is awful.
I shouldn't say it.
I'll get hooked off by theorganisers in a minute.
They won't let me fly home orsomething.
But you know, maybe, yes, theseare great For lighters.

(15:27):
This is magical.
I can see so many people I needto see quickly and easily.
But perhaps and the conferenceis great if I want to learn from
other lighting designers, butmaybe it needs to be 50-50.
Maybe it's a mixed bag thenlighting, mixed bag, then
lighting.
We could talk about this so much, but we do need to become more

(15:50):
well-known, and it's our job todo that.
It's not their fault.
It's our job to do that, it'snot their fault.

Amardeep Dugar (15:54):
It's our job to do that.
Anyway, thank you so much,Andrew.
Thank you.
It was great.
Thank you for coming guys.
It was a great conversation.
We could have talked for ages,but then we have other things to
do.
We have a talk to do.
We have a talk to do, Thank you.

Andrew Bissel (16:06):
Fabulous, thank you.