Profile: Mike Grubb


Francis Pearce reports on the work of lighting designer Mike Grubb, and discusses with him the idea of recycling kit into projects.


FX

Words by Francis Pearce

Built-in Obsolescence surfaced first in the car industry in the USA in the Twenties, when anyone who could afford an automobile had already bought one, or so General Motors thought. The idea of it is to create new demand by ensuring that the original purchase either fails or goes out of favour. Sometimes manufacturers would deliberately shorten the usable life of a product by including parts that wore or broke before their time, but consumers were also easily persuaded to junk perfectly good products simply to get the latest model. Some manufacturers even sued companies that offered to repair their products.

In his 1960 book, The Waste Makers, Vance Packard decried 'the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals'. More than half a century later though we still buy throwaway printer-ink cartridges that are programmed to dry up half full, and manufacturers force us to abandon functioning software by withdrawing support.

Michael Grubb
Michael Grubb. Photo:Mike Massaro

Lighting, however, is one area where manufacturers have had obsolescence thrust on them by legislation, such as the outlawing of the incandescent 'bulb', and by the pace of development in components: principally the LED. In information technology, Moore's Law famously says that capacity will double every year; in the world of LEDs the equivalent is Haitz's Law, which states that every decade the cost per lumen falls by a factor of 10, and the amount of light generated per LED package increases by a factor of 20, for a given wavelength (colour) of light.

In other words, LED makers are still finding ways to get more and better light from smaller chips and at a lower cost. The upshot is that by the time a lighting manufacturer brings a product to market, it is genuinely about to be superseded, which means that products that were at the leading edge just months before are left on the shelf. All that embedded energy, those materials and components, all that real estate has gone to waste. Add to that the new products that are not saleable because they have a scratch or simply have been taken out of their box.

In Re:Lit, surplus and redundant lighting kit is put to work in community projects
In Re:Lit, surplus and redundant lighting kit is put to work in community projects

It was thoughts along those lines - shared around a pub table - that inspired lighting designer Michael Grubb and his team, including senior designer Stuart Alexander, to devise Re:Lit, a scheme for putting surplus and redundant lighting kit to work in community projects. The first 'edition' of Re:Lit used interior light fittings donated by more than 20 manufacturers to help restore the 200-seat Shelley Theatre, near Bournemouth, where Michael Grubb Studio is based.

The project won the most recent Lux Lighting Awards in the recycling category and was commended for 'its revolutionary approach to sustainability' in the 2015 Lighting Design Awards. The second Re:Lit project will be at the recently opened Oasis Farm near Waterloo Station in London, where a strip of wasteland has been transformed to offer 'farming, family and therapy' to disadvantaged and vulnerable children from the area. The exterior lighting will be installed later in the year.

The Gardens of Light Festival, in Bournemouth
The Gardens of Light Festival, in Bournemouth

The point about 'surplus' equipment is that what may now be second-best is still better than what went before. Re:Lit at the Shelley Theatre at Boscombe Manor replaced aged tungsten floodlights with fittings that reduced energy usage from 8kW to just below 1kW (951W) and enabled more areas to be used, many for new purposes. Despite a busy schedule and a growing business, the studio's work and time were provided free of charge for these projects.

To Grubb, Re:Lit is an example of the ways in which the definition of sustainability in lighting design has broadened. 'Five years ago people used to say "We do sustainability; we only use LEDs" and I love that that's so irrelevant now.'

Everyone uses LEDs,' he says. 'Sustainability should be so embedded in our consciousness that it's just part of the process. You don't say "We design lighting to avoid glare" - that's blindingly obvious.'

There are two guiding principles that lighting design is supposed to follow. The first is that you should put the right amount of the right light in the right place at the right time and, some would add, under the right controls.

The Gardens of Light Festival, in Bournemouth
The Gardens of Light Festival, in Bournemouth

The second is that you have to light for people; in other words lighting design is not about checklists. Grubb argues that sustainable lighting has far more to do with combining these principles than the technology you choose.

'Too many people start thinking about the building, the BREEAM credits, the legislation and the budget rather than, at a very simple level - "What is this space for? Who uses it? How will the lighting enrich their experience?"

When you have a grasp of what you want to achieve, then you can set about doing it in the most efficient way,' he says. 'You could tick all the boxes and it could still be so crap and soulless that no-one wants to go there, and if it's not used it's not sustainable. "Reuse, recycle and reduce" is fine, but it misses the point if what you design and the space are not being used.'

'Reuse, recycle and reduce' certainly has a place though. For the Gardens of Light Festival, for example, also in Bournemouth, Michael Grubb Studio designed illuminated beach-hut installations that could be brought out and added to year after year.

But in Grubb's terms the real secret of sustainability lies in the people who use the lighting: the local community.

'One of the things we did with Gardens of Light was to look for ways to pass ownership of the project over to the local community because when they have a stake in it they will moan when it doesn't work and that is what will sustain it in the long run. It's true of a lot of regeneration projects, too. You can create a great scheme but then you're off and the commissioning body is probably going to be wound down, so unless the scheme is designed to involve the community, the lights will eventually go off.'

So is Re:Lit itself sustainable? First, there is the principle that surplus does not mean scrap. Lighting designers often say that their craft is about the effect not the fitting, which, unless it's special, should be out of sight as much as possible. In some cases an effective light source that looks a bit knocked about may even be desirable.

Straddling the community/commercial divide, 90 Mainyard in Hackney, East London, is a converted diecutting factory that includes affordable co-working spaces with a shared office, photography studio, recording studios, art studios, restaurant, roof terrace and event space. Its post-industrial setting includes high ceilings, exposed pipework and concrete pillars. The LED lighting scheme designed by MGS was up-cycled from ex-demo equipment and superseded luminaires, with additional lighting equipment donated by LED module supplier Xicato.

The second element is where Re:Lit will go next. 'It is a big commitment for one practice,' Grubb admits. 'We did it to make a point but we recognise that the problem will not go away, so we have to think about the longer term and ways to expand it. We are not precious about it being controlled by us; we deliberately branded it as Re:Lit rather than being about us, so I would love to have other organisations involved. The first year we were inundated with options, which showed how big an issue this is.'

More surplus lighting equipment could be put to work if regional versions of Re:Lit were launched and Re:Lit could be a regular add-on to lighting trade shows and exhibitions.

Affordable co-working spaces 90 Mainyard, straddles the community/ commercial divide
Affordable co-working spaces 90 Mainyard, straddles the community/ commercial divide

'You have all that lighting equipment on the stands that either goes in a skip after the show or is put in a container for the next one but when they open it up again they realise it's out of date or it's not in mint condition,' says Grubb.

Re:Lit could also give lighting students an opportunity to hone their skills and do some good. Grubb casts Re:Lit as a kind of permanent Ready Steady Light, the yearly event organised by the Society of Light and Lighting at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance in Kent.

In it teams of students and lighting professionals compete to design and set up temporary exterior installations using donated fittings, in just three hours. 'Re:Lit has a lot of momentum and has gained a lot of exposure, but we have to find ways to maintain all that energy,' Grubb adds. 'It could be a powerful resource for charities and communities with little or no money.'

Although the lighting industry has its own peculiar challenges, the sort of waste that Re:Lit has highlighted exists in other areas. Might not there be room, too, for other design practices to launch Re:Decorated or Re:Furnished perhaps? 'The important thing is that for any project to be truly sustainable,' says Grubb. 'It has to have soul.'








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