Matt Waring

Lauren Dandridge

Lauren Dandridge, Co-Founder of Chromatic, sits down with arc for a frank discussion on intersectionality, diversity and inclusivity in lighting, and how the industry can become more equitable.

Over the past two years, the world has been a tumultuous place. As we stayed inside to avoid the ongoing pandemic, we watched in shock and horror as societal injustices and inequalities were brought to the forefront. 

The murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed in May 2020, and Sarah Everard’s murder in March 2021 were particular flashpoints, shining a harsh spotlight on the inequities that still exist surrounding race and gender. These moments forced many of us to look inwards, to question our own subconscious biases and privileges, and ask ourselves what we can do, what we need to do better. It led to a lot of difficult, in some cases uncomfortable conversations, but they are conversations that need to be had, nonetheless.

These conversations are what led to the formation of Chromatic – a new lighting design studio led by Lauren Dandridge, alongside co-founder Nick Albert, that is focused on addressing issues of inequity and accessibility in the lighting industry.

“The skeleton of Chromatic is the conversations that Nick and I have that come from a place of extreme discomfort for both of us as a Black woman and a white man – or at least it was at some point,” Dandridge explained. “Now the hard initial phase is over, and we’ve reached a point of comfort in terms of talking about these things.

“When we started the firm, we said from the outset ‘we don’t want to be just another lighting design firm’. There are truly outstanding lighting design firms that do really beautiful and artistic work. I think we can be capable of that and make the biggest, best work out there, but so what? Art without purpose goes in the hotels by the freeway that people only see when they’re in transition. 

“I want something that is meaningful not just for me personally, but to my community and to the lighting industry as a whole, and at the time when we were talking about it, I didn’t see it. I found people outside of lighting talking about it, but I didn’t see my industry, that I’ve been in for a really long time, taking a firm stance and then doing something. That became an important part of what we do; we do lighting, but with the human condition always at the forefront. 

“The human condition is so much larger than the parts that we as an industry have traditionally thought about. What we are here to do is have lighting talk about the whole human experience in a greater way than it has been so far. I think of Chromatic as a perspective: there’s a view that we take on how lighting informs and is used by humanity, but also the process through which you can execute those designs.”

For Dandridge, the journey that led to the formation of Chromatic was a long one, that saw her travel through theatrical lighting design, architectural lighting design, education, sales, and then back to architectural lighting design again. But through it all has been a love and fascination for light that has endured from an early age.

She recalled: “I went to a private school in Maryland. It had a theatre programme, and I remember in one of the theatre group’s plays there was a lighting effect that I saw, and I thought it was so cool. I talked to the teacher and asked them how they did that, and they showed me a lighting console. That was in middle school, so I ended up making a bit of a thing out of it and kept helping on the plays and the performances. 

“Eventually, like most people, someone influential came into my life – her name is Susan Tannery, she was the theatre director at my high school. She told me she went to school for technical theatre, and it seemed like something that I would be interested in.”

As such, Dandridge went on to study Theatrical Lighting at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Here, she said that she took to heart the classic mantra of ‘do what you love, and it won’t be work’. She explained: “I thought I love theatre, so I’m going to do theatre. But it turns out it isn’t work, because it doesn’t pay well enough to be considered work.

“I decided to take a couple of chances on other things, where I first learned what it really meant to pivot and use all these skills that I had, but in a different avenue. I got an internship on a movie that was shooting in Chicago and worked in the art department. I learned a whole set of different things – we’re still creating environments and trying to create moods, but it’s much more based in reality.”

This experience led to another internship in Los Angeles the Spring before she graduated from college, which in turn led to a job. “But then another influential person came into my life, and they were not a nice person,” Dandridge continued. “I thought ‘you’re still working in this industry, even though it’s common knowledge that you’re not a great human being’. I realised that this is an industry that will continue to promote people who are not their best selves, and I had a really hard time with that. So, I thought ‘if I’m going to be in this industry, I need to have more skills and I need to be able to pursue a different position so that I know how to get there, so that I don’t have to work for that kind of person’.”

As such, Dandridge enrolled in some extra classes at UCLA. It was here that she met another influential person, Kathy Pryzgoda, who taught the lighting classes in UCLA’s Architecture and Interior Design programme. Like Dandridge, Pryzgoda had a degree in theatrical lighting, but was teaching the architectural lighting class – something that piqued Dandridge’s interest.

“I cold-called her and said, ‘I see you’re teaching architectural lighting; I have the same degree as you and I’m curious to see what you’re doing with it’. We went out to lunch and had a great connection, and she hired me to be an assistant. She was running an amazing, single-designer firm, making it work and still doing work at the Hollywood Bowl. I thought ‘this is the best life ever’, she was doing architectural work, which kept the finances consistent, as well as the theatrical work, which was the passion. 

“But then, the economy tanked at the end of 2008, so I needed to find another job.”

Luckily for Dandridge, she had done some freelance work for another firm, Konsortum 1, where she met the next influential person in her life, Eileen Thomas. “She was working as a singular lighting designer in a massive electrical engineering firm. She was amazing – incredibly humble, and incredibly giving in terms of knowledge. When you meet someone who genuinely wants you to succeed, all you want to do is succeed for them, and that’s how I feel about Eileen. She saw potential in me as a junior designer, she was incredibly patient with me, and I embarked upon a very steep learning curve.”

And then, as Dandridge puts it, “life happened”. “As simple and terrible as it boils down to, I needed to make more money. I have an ambitious husband who has his own business, and we were looking at the kind of life we wanted to live – it wasn’t that I wasn’t making good money, but as hard as I was working for the money I was making, he said ‘you might as well be working for yourself’.

“David Komonosky, a salesperson at Performance Lighting Systems, had previously said to me ‘if you’re ever thinking about making a change, just give me a call’. So, I made this choice, which at the time seemed like an end of the world decision to leave design and become a sales agent. I thought that I had sold out and given up on life, but then what I realised once I started doing it was that being a sales agent is amazing. I could be the kind of sales agent that I would have wanted to call on me – I always kept a designer’s mentality while keeping a very clear line between what a salesperson does and what a designer should do. I felt that it was my opportunity to learn how the sausage is getting made.”

Dandridge worked in Specification Sales at Performance Lighting Systems for nine years before, in May 2021, making the decision to return to architectural lighting design to establish Chromatic alongside Nick Albert.

“I had been feeling for a few years that this career is checking so many of my boxes except for my personal passion – I work for great people, I make good money, I’m able to take care of my kids, Performance helped me be the kind of mum I wanted to be for a really long time. Now it just so happens that I need to show them something different,” she said. 

“Nick and I met around 2015, when I started to call on the design studio he was running. We started talking about future plans in late 2020. We had already become good friends and spent a lot of time talking about the industry, things we liked and things we wished were better. Shortly after, he was speaking with his wife, Susan, and she mentioned that he and I should work together. So technically the beginning of Chromatic was neither of our idea, but instead Susan’s.

“We spent 6-7 months thinking and marinating on the kind of firm we would want to have and the kind of work that we wanted to do. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we launched in August of 2021.

“Chromatic is something that I had always wanted to do – not necessarily having my own firm but being a designer and having your work be viewed and done in a way that is reputable and good for the environment and good for humanity and all these things.

“Chromatic is our love song to how we want lighting to be effective in the world. It’s about process and perspective. We’re saying, ‘here’s this diverse firm with different perspectives in terms of race, gender, our personal histories’ – we value all of that and it informs how we approach projects.”

Since forming Chromatic last year, and indeed since the tragic events of 2020, Dandridge has been looking at what she can do as a designer and an educator within her role as Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of South California (USC), to address issues surrounding equity, or the lack thereof, within lighting. In a particularly stirring piece for Architect Magazine, published in October 2021, she talked with Editor Wanda Lau about the “legacy of inequity in architectural lighting”.

“Most of my words start from a place of personal perspective,” she said. “I think about the entry into lighting design that I had as incredibly accidental. If you think about all the things that interested you as a kid, how many of those stuck? Why was it lighting? I don’t know, other than that’s the seed that got the most nurture and attention.

“Is there equity in lighting? No. If you look at the people who are practicing lighting design, the people who are practicing in lighting as a whole, if you walk the Lightfair show floor, you will see that there’s not equity there. Is there equal access to the industry? Sure, from a paper standpoint; anybody can go to a university that has a programme and enter that. But just like most things, if you don’t know it’s there, you don’t know how to ask for it.

“I listen to a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell called Revisionist History, and in one episode he talks about the nurturing of students and how Ivy League schools were having a really hard time getting students of colour, Black students to come to these STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors; but on the flipside there are these historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) that are pumping out STEM-educated kids of colour. Yet when the predominantly white institutions are asked why they don’t have more students of colour, they say they can’t find them.

“The parallel that I’m drawing with lighting is that it feels very much the same way. If we can increase the access point from at least one mechanism that we can control – we know that trade schools have entry points, we know that if we start early, we can get kids more interested in STEM and artistic endeavours – we can let them know that this is an opportunity that they can ask for.

“I teach at USC, and I have very few Black or Latinx students, and so much so are we singular in our existence that when we launched Chromatic, all the students that I heard from were students of colour who specifically remembered seeing me in that class and thought ‘oh my gosh, I have a Black teacher’.

“The industry isn’t equitable because it started off as an industry that wasn’t equitable, and it can’t change until the people in that inequitable industry decide to reach out and pull other people into it.”

As for her own personal experience as a Black woman in the lighting industry, Dandridge said that she hasn’t received any “incredibly outward or noticeable experiences of discrimination”, but rather micro-aggressions and unintentional biases.

“I have consistently been the only Black person in a space for years. But most of the spaces that I have been in have leaned much more towards the ‘I don’t see race’ part of the conversation; and when you don’t see race, it’s impossible to have tokens, because everyone is exactly the same – ironically until you have a baby, then all of a sudden, you’re a woman.

“But what’s interesting is that people are very willing to acknowledge gender, because it feels like a natural organisation of humanity. People talk about marriage, about having kids, all these things that have gender implications built into them, and that may change based on the level of equity we’re seeing in terms of non-binary gender issues. But when it comes to race people are incredibly uncomfortable because there’s no sophisticated language for dealing with all the layers that racism has. When you say racism people immediately feel like you’re talking about them, and it’s so hard to have conversations in workplaces surrounding race where the immediate defensiveness isn’t projected onto you.

“The idea of ‘colour-blindness’ has put white people essentially on defence, where if they even say the word Black or acknowledge Blackness, then they are somehow opening the door to someone questioning them. And until that dynamic, where the immediate defensiveness of acknowledgement of race goes away, the equity part of lighting is going to be very hard to counteract.”

The contrast between gender and racial equity in the lighting industry leads the conversation to the notion of allyship and privilege – something that arc has been particularly focused on over the last few issues. Where the lighting design community has been very keen to support gender equality and highlight male privilege, is Dandridge concerned that racial equity and white privilege is being overlooked?

“The constituency of women has grown over the years, and any time you have more voices, a singular message can be heard more loudly,” Dandridge said. “It’s interesting because the intersection of race and gender and religion and all of these other things happen, and we don’t always know how to acknowledge them simultaneously.

“If we look at the mindset that being a white man is the ‘norm’, or the standard that we’re trying to get to, then white women are right there. But then you have the complexity of, depending on your perspective, I would argue that men of colour have more privilege than white women because of their position as men. You could do-si-do the different human points a million different ways to make it seem like none of them are achievable and yet all of them are achievable.

“The hard thing about privilege is that it’s something that you don’t realise that you have. Trying to convince somebody who worked really hard to get where they are, who sacrificed, made less money, put their head down, that even in all of that work and in that success, they were privileged is going to go down like a lead balloon. Until we can all acknowledge a level of privilege it’s going to be hard to make substantial progress.

“I have it as an educated person, as a lighter skinned Black person, as an American. The level of privilege that I have, I have to acknowledge when I’m in conversations.”

Alongside Dandridge’s views on equity in the lighting industry as a profession, she’s also heavily invested in achieving wider, societal equity through light. In a previous interview inside arc, Dr. Shelly James referred to light as a ‘social differentiator’, and while Dandridge agreed to an extent, she feels that it is “a symptom of a larger problem in how it is applied”.

“Lighting does not care what it does, it is an inanimate object that is taken as a tool by which people in power can wield it against those not. Much like being able to own a home is indicative of a larger financial and economic system, lighting falls into the same category of something that can be weaponised against a group of people, because it is a necessary item that we need for nightlife, for existing in buildings, and anything that is of need, once it is withheld, it puts you in a place of discomfort.

“I think lighting is a social signifier, not in the same way that having a fancy car is, but that you become part of a group that is being transgressed upon, or surveilled, or undervalued by a system that is supposed to look at everybody equally.

“The second issue is that lighting design as a service industry, for better or worse, largely exists in a place of privilege, in that we are an additional service fee on top of an already expensive process. It’s considered extra fancy if you have a lighting designer in the same way that if you had an interior designer or a landscape designer – it’s hard to say that we aren’t specialised to the point of exclusion.

“This is also something that Nick and I talk about; how can lighting design be more equitable? How can we get on the projects that affect more people, that make the quality of light a necessary item to consider?”

This is one of the primary considerations for Light Privilege – a design framework established by Chromatic, through which Dandridge and Albert are trying to address inequities at night by understanding the ways in which light intersects life, talking about privilege and its role in our illuminated experiences, and confronting the ways that light has been used in systems of racism and oppression.

“Accepting that privilege exists becomes the imperative for identifying, understanding and working to counteract the systemic mechanism of inequity,” Dandridge said. “Light Privilege seeks to ensure that all communities have access to the beauty and possibilities of light. We want to take this information and present it to stakeholders and say that lighting has to be a part of this conversation – not lighting from a financial/economic standpoint, but as the creation of an environment, because we know that doing lighting for the least amount possible, by people who don’t understand the greater implications, doesn’t work.

“It will forever be a work in progress, there are always new mountains to climb, but for right now I’m happy for every opportunity to be able to talk about it.”

Looking ahead, Dandridge is keen to continue spreading the word about Light Privilege and building up Chromatic’s portfolio of work. The studio has several projects nearing completion, and Dandridge explained that they are already looking at expanding.

“We have this firm that has this perspective, we created this process, but we’ll need to hire soon,” she said. “I don’t want to have just any firm, because then it wouldn’t be my firm, and I want to have a place where people can truly bring their whole selves. You shouldn’t have to put away 40% of who you are to have peace at your job, and that’s the goal of Chromatic, to be able to have people who believe in our mission and us, and who we believe in and work together to support this way of life, of being your whole selves: the uncomfortable, sticky parts and the parts that are shiny and polished. They exist in the same place, so that’s a big goal of mine for Chromatic – I want to be even better than the people who were great to me.”

Until then, Dandridge will continue to have the difficult, uncomfortable conversations. Although she feels that over time, they are becoming easier.

“In some ways, it’s liberating. Part of working for somebody else is that you’re not sure you’re supported in all the ways that you can be your whole self, and part of entrepreneurship is that I can be my whole self and the consequences only rest on me, and specifically for Chromatic, Nick. But our partnership allows us that freedom because we both 100% believe in the things that we’re saying,” she said. “It’s terrifying at times, because there’s a certain level of success that you can have when you can be invisible and small, and when you step out and become visible and make statements, you’re inviting judgement and opinion, and there are days when those opinions can be a lot sharper than others.

“Dr. Manuel Pastor, a distinguished professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at USC, said to me once that having these conversations is like going to the gym: the first time you go it’s really hard – but then you go a second time, and it still hurts, but it’s not like the first time. And you go again and again and eventually you can do the workout more effectively; you have been trained. And that’s what these conversations have to be like – I know that if I choose to do the work, I will get better, and I think that there is a universal truth in that, and that can be reflected here as well.

“If we continue to have these incredibly uncomfortable conversations with a level of honesty and protection, but not defensiveness, then we can make changes. The conversations beget the change, they are the door through which we walk, but we have to do the work and we can’t be scared of doing it, even though it hurts.”

www.wearechromatic.com

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by Matt Waring

Michael Grubb

With a big year on the horizon for Michael Grubb Studio, arc sits down with its founder to talk about how he became one of the hottest names in the UK lighting design community, and what the future has in store for the Bournemouth-based firm.

When the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns first hit back in 2020, many of us were understandably quite panicked, taking to social media to remind the world that yes, we are still here. 

However, for Michael Grubb and his self-titled studio, he went in the opposite direction, using the enforced pause to look inward and reflect on his position in the lighting design world.

“I got a bit bored with throwback projects,” he told arc. “I get why people did it, but we went the opposite way and instead took a step back to reflect on who we are, who we want to be, what we represent, what our ethos should be moving forward.”

During this period of reflection, Michael Grubb Studio has undergone a rebrand and, as we start to cautiously move into a post-pandemic world, Grubb is looking ahead to what he called “Michael Grubb Studio Part 2”.

The rebrand comes just nine years after the formation of the Bournemouth-based practice, during which it has become one of the most sought-after lighting design firms in the country.

Grubb formed his eponymous studio in January 2013, shortly after working as Learning Legacy Ambassador for Lighting at London 2012 and winning the Lighting Designer of the Year award. His journey into lighting though, began back in the mid 1990s where, like many designers in his generation, he “fell into lighting design”.

“I studied Industrial Design and Product Design at Arts University Bournemouth and Three-Dimensional Design at the University of Plymouth, and I liked lighting as a thing, and I appreciated the mood and ambience that came with it,” he said. “It wasn’t alien to me, but my understanding was very surface level as a graduate. But through work experience I found it interesting and exciting.”

Graduating in 1998, Grubb considers himself “very lucky” that he entered the working world just as the country was gearing towards the new Millennium. Moving from the South Coast to London, he joined Sutton Vane Associates, where he gained access to a number of exciting projects. “There were all of these Millennium projects - the famous ones like the Dome and the London Eye, but there were also museums and national theatres, popping up everywhere. Over a very short period, I got access to a lot of them at a very junior level, and I loved it; I realised then just how important lighting design was, and how varied it was.

“It was like falling in love with someone; it wasn’t love at first sight, even though it’s more romantic to say that. I fell in love with it deeply over a period of months. When I was training, I never really knew where I would fit. I never felt that I wanted to be an architect or an interior designer, even product design even though that’s what I trained in. What lighting design does is it covers everything.”

Grubb worked at Sutton Vane Associates for 14 years, rising through the ranks to the position of Director, before leaving at the end of 2012 and returning to his hometown of Bournemouth. “When I left, I didn’t really know what I was going to do,” he said. “I got some extremely well-paid offers to work with some manufacturers, but by having these offers, it made it clear to me that I didn’t want to do that, and what was left was ‘you’re going to have to do it on your own’.

“I took six weeks over Christmas to think things through, but once I knew I was going to do it, I got really excited, and my brain was working in overdrive. I was also very nervous - I had one kid back then, a mortgage, a family, and people kept saying to me ‘you’ll never do it in Bournemouth, you’ll never succeed outside of London or a major city’.

“But it was an extremely liberating thing. It’s like having a blank canvas - you don’t know what the name of your business is going to be, what your logo is going to look like, your website, you haven’t even thought about projects yet - it was a very exciting period.”

To that end, Grubb explained that he never intended to name the new studio after himself, as the goal was never for it to be a solo project. “I didn’t want the company to be Michael Grubb anything,” he said. “I was adamant that it would be called something else. I spent two weeks getting hardly any sleep, thinking of every possible name I could come up with which had either already gone; was unbelievably cheesy and clichéd; or so vague and pointless that it was pretentious.

“But then someone in the industry said to me ‘you’d be an idiot if you don’t use your name, because you’ve just won Lighting Designer of the Year, and everyone knows who you are. Start with your name and by all means change it in the future if that’s what you want to do’.

“In a weird way, I didn’t feel the pressure at the beginning because I never necessarily saw it as being me. I had no intention of being a one-man band. I started from day one with a collective team mentality not as an individual - my mindset was quite blinkered on being a team from the outset. 

“And that happened very quickly as well: within six weeks to three months, it was quite surprising what contracts and what clients we had. That’s when I realised more than anything, people work with people, rather than companies or names or logos, and I hadn’t really appreciated that until I started up - I thought much more that I was starting again, but I wasn’t.”

With such a keen focus on the studio being a collective, he has always sought to surround himself with a strong team of designers, something that he feels is “absolutely critical”. “I’m at peace with this now, but my name is a brand, and the problem we have is that sometimes people do assume that it’s just me, so it’s really important that I have a strong team around me to be able to say it’s not about me,” he said.

“A few times people have said to me ‘what you need is another you’, and I always say that’s the last thing I need. What I need is people that challenge me, are happy to disagree with me, there’s no point in getting ‘yes’ men or women who just nod. Diversity in thinking and skillsets and talent is really important. It’s like a football team – there’s no point in having the best 11 goalkeepers, you need to have diversity and balance.”

Grubb’s mindset of the wider collective is something that isn’t limited to his own company either, as he added that from the offset Michael Grubb Studio always recognised the community feel of the lighting design industry. “One of the things that I definitely bought into was the idea of being positive and embracing other people’s work. I don’t allow anyone in the office to say ‘competitors’, they’re ‘friends of the industry’. 

“Generally, I get on really well with all of the other consultants, so at events like 

[d]arc night, we’ll chat to everyone; at awards parties, I’ll congratulate the winners afterwards, and it’s all genuine. That genuine community spirit is something that I want to embrace, and then that creates positivity internally as well.”

On a stylistic level though, Grubb hoped from the beginning that he could tap into what he identified as a gap in the lighting design market to create something more unique and standalone. “At the time, everyone was quite rigid in terms of how they worked, on the one hand you had the engineering-minded designers, and then the architectural lighting designers; and on the other hand, you had the light artists. I wanted to position ourselves between architectural lighting and light artists; we’re not saying we’re light artists, we are architectural - but there’s a creative, theatrical, bold, statement area that I didn’t think was being exploited but more importantly, fell where I thought I was as a designer at the time.

“We wanted to create technically sound, but really subjective lighting design. Our approach was ‘as long as we think it looks cool, it’s done’. That was enough of a starting point to know where we were going. Even when we did the logo, everyone else’s was black and white and we had a big, colourful logo, so it was a statement of intent - we’re going to be different and we’re confident in being different.”

That being said, Grubb doesn’t feel that he has a particular ‘signature style’, at least, not intentionally. “Two or three times when I’ve done talks and we’ve had a Q&A at the end, people have asked ‘you do a lot of bold, wow, impact projects and you don’t mind using colour, is that deliberate?’ I always said no, but the fact that I keep getting asked about it, maybe it subconsciously is.

“People say that lighting design should be effortless, that you walk into a space and feel the warmth, and while I buy into that, to some extent I do want people to walk into a room and think ‘look at this restaurant, it’s really warm, really cosy, and wow the lighting is cool’. I want that end bit where people notice the lighting.

“When we get hired, clients are looking for a bit of bang, something that is not too subtle. The bigger you get, you can’t always be like that, but you’ve only got to go on our portfolio page to know that there’s quite a lot of intensity there at times – that’s what people wanted, they wanted a creative statement with light.”

This approach has seen Grubb and his studio work across a wide range of projects, from public realm and exterior lighting to retail, museums, and visitor experiences. “I would say that we’re quite diverse,” Grubb said. “I quite like new challenges. For example, when we got involved with Lush it wasn’t retail that appealed to me, it was their brief, approach, what they were trying to do and untangling problems for them, creating our own creative brief that they then bought into, and then pushing them in the right direction.”

With a diverse portfolio of work, Grubb feels that there isn’t one particular “landmark” project that helped put the studio on the map, but rather a consistent collection of projects “that all happened at the right time”.

“You’re only as good as your last project,” he said. “If you look back six or seven years ago, I’m still very proud of what we did, but if you’re still openly promoting them, I feel like you’re living off past glories.

“We’ve won a lot of awards for Bath Abbey recently and I’m really proud of that. We’ve had moments when we worked on the Olympic Park, the project with Lush, developing the design language for the Guinness Storehouse – these are all quite different, but the key thing for us is that we’re staying relevant across different sectors and different disciplines; we’re always thinking differently and moving forward.”

One area in particular where Grubb has been relatively forward-thinking has been his longstanding push towards sustainability and the circular economy – something that the lighting industry at large is now much more committed to. Not long after the formation of Michael Grubb Studio, Grubb established Re-Lit, an initiative that works with manufacturers to take superseded, damaged, or ex-demo lighting products, recycle and reuse them.

Grubb explained that the formation of Re-Lit wasn’t a preconceived, conscious idea from the start, but something that evolved over time. “A lot of ideas come to us through conversations,” he said. “If you have conversations, over days, months, years, things will bubble to the surface.

“Re-Lit started as a conversation in the pub between Stuart [Alexander, Associate at Michael Grubb Studio] and I. The whole idea came from the number of samples that we had knocking around, and in the LED world, just how much waste there was when we only had them on for 20 seconds and they last for 20 years, but when we tried to return them, the companies had already made better, newer products. We thought that was a big waste, but maybe we could turn it into a charity.

“These things evolve naturally, and when we worked with Lush, they came to us with a completely different set of problems; they were telling us about their green credentials, and we happened to be doing Re-Lit at the same time, so we merged some of that together. It wasn’t called the circular economy at the time, but that’s what we were doing. We looked at how we could get products maintained through multiple stores over 20 years, even to the point of designing the packaging and how it would be stored. We went through the whole process before this idea of the circular economy was widely discussed.”

Although Michael Grubb Studio was relatively ahead of the curve when it came to thinking about the circular economy in the lighting industry, Grubb said that he feels “slightly awkward” when people tell him that he was at the forefront of the movement. “We weren’t pioneering anything; we were just naturally doing it on commercial projects. There were better, more impressive people than us doing it, but people realised that we were doing it and brought us into the conversation. We were more than happy to contribute, and still are, but to say that we drove the industry with it would be very misleading, and makes me feel like we would be getting more credit than we probably deserve.”

Looking ahead, Grubb believes that the circular economy and “second-hand lighting industry” will continue to gain steam, although he doesn’t believe it’ll be the next big revolution.

“It’s a bit like Back to the Future 2, isn’t it? You can predict the future and you’ll get some things right but most things wrong. It depends how far into the future you’re trying to predict,” he said.

“I think what is going to happen now though, where we used to have massive moments like the advent of LED, now there’s going to be lots of little things that shift the way we think. I think education and training needs to change, and it will. The lighting design community is becoming more diverse, there’s more studios and practices than ever before, and everyone is going to find their way of carving themselves into the market.”

As for his own studio, Grubb revealed that he has big plans for 2022. “I’m never a believer in standing still, because eventually you’re going to get caught out,” he said. “There’s an energy in doing new things and being positive and exciting.

“The biggest thing we’re going to do in 2022 is start a London studio. This isn’t a reaction to being in Bournemouth, but a positive step as we’re looking to expand the Michael Grubb Studio brand long-term, globally.”

Alongside a rebrand for the studio, Grubb also added that in 2022 he is looking “to push the team as individuals in the collective to give them the recognition and acknowledgement and support that they deserve”, while also offering more in the way of education and training.

“I’m creating an entire training matrix that then creates a roadmap for each individual designer in the team,” he added. “The roadmap is about career progression, but also based on skills, knowledge, creativity and being clear in terms of what the stages are and how you get there.

“I’ve also registered Michael Grubb Academy, as I believe that there should be some kind of apprentice scheme in place for lighting designers. I’m trying to create a system internally to then be able to open it up externally. I’ve also been in discussions with the ILP among others, as it doesn’t have to be a Michael Grubb thing – I don’t see it as a commercial idea, but a gap in the industry.”

Continuing with the recurring theme of spotting gaps in the market, Grubb also revealed that he plans to publish a book this year, entitled Stories with Light. “There are a lot of technical books on the science of light, and a massive range of books in terms of inspiration, but what I realised was that there are all these stories about light that sit in the middle, and that’s what I wanted to explore.

“There are musings, stories, some that are quite bizarre, touching, random, there are sorts of weird characters – it’s a bit like being around a campfire and swapping tales of lighting.”

With all of this going on, Grubb sees 2022 as the beginning of a new phase for Michael Grubb Studio, and hopes that he can continue to build a brand, and a culture, that people will want to work with.

“We talk about the Great Resignation – I think as human beings, not just lighting designers, everyone has now got strong ideas of who they want to work for, why they want to work for them. I want to create an ethos where we appeal not just to clients, but lighting designers, to be part of something. That’s what people want now – people want a purpose and to feel like they’re part of a movement that they believe in.”

www.michaelgrubbstudio.com

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by Matt Waring

Lauren Lever

After more than 14 years’ experience in lighting design, last year Lauren Lever established her own practice - Minoux. arc sits down with Lever to discuss the move, and her aspirations for Minoux.

How did you get into lighting design?

I am one of the ‘old school designers’ in our industry, when lighting design wasn’t a subject that you could take at university. We came from different backgrounds, whether that’s architecture, product design or engineering. This is part of the reason why I love our industry, as we have such a rich mix of backgrounds and knowledge. I always had a passion for design at school, even though I was one of only two girls in the class and was told that it was normally categorised as a boy’s subject; this still didn’t stop me as I loved the subject and wanted to learn more. This led me to study Product and Furniture Design at De Montfort University in Leicester. During my time there I decided that one of my work pieces would be to design and build a light fixture. When it was time to see which career path I wanted to go down, I found out that lighting design was an actual job and I jumped at the opportunity. I have now been in the industry for more than 15 years and continue to love what I do. 

What led you to setting up your own studio?

It was something that I always wanted to do and knew that it would happen when the time was right. I decided to take the leap and start my own lighting design studio last year and I haven’t looked back. Some people thought I was mad doing it in the middle of the pandemic, but I believe there is never a right time to start a new business; you just need to jump right in. 

Do you have a ‘Mission Statement’ for Minoux?

I feel my ethos is all about creativity, innovation and being customer focused with an appetite for great lighting design. No project is too small, and I relish the opportunity to share my passion with others. 

Will you specialise in a particular area? 

I have worked on a number of diverse areas during my career as a lighting designer, but found my focus is prominently in the Hospitality, Residential and Commercial sectors. I do not have a ‘house-style’ and believe that each project deserves to be designed and tailored to suit the client’s needs. I particularly enjoy working on hotel projects, where varied atmospheres and ambiences can be created for each space; ranging from dark and moody bars, to sensual spa experiences or bright and welcoming receptions.

How have your past experiences shaped your approach for Minoux?

I believe that my past experiences have shaped me into the designer that I am today. Each lighting consultancy had their own particular specialism, which has helped me learn all aspects of lighting design and improve my skillset. I have had the pleasure of working for some of the top women in the industry and I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn from each of them. 

What are your aspirations for Minoux? What do you hope to bring to the lighting world?

Lighting design is still unfortunately one element of a project that gets left to the last minute or forgotten about. I believe that lighting can make or break a project. I have been lucky enough to talk at many events in front of architects and interior designers, which has allowed me to fly the flag for getting a lighting designer in at the earlier stages of a project, showing the end client that good lighting design doesn’t need to cost the earth. 

Can you tell us a bit more about your collaboration with Prolicht and Tom Dixon for the Workspace Design Show?

I had the pleasure of working with the Workspace Design Show and they asked Minoux to provide a lighting installation at their main entrance. I was excited to see what could be achieved within the iconic space of the Business Design Centre. Lighting installations should be fun, engaging and draw people in. Prolicht had recently collaborated with Tom Dixon to design a range of light fixtures which shows a rawness and industrial feel to LED technology. Looking at the range, I thought it was perfect for the show, combining the use of smooth lighting controls and programming which was provided by Casambi; this allowed the product to come to life using animation.

What sort of reaction have you had so far? Do you have a lot of work already in the pipeline?

The reaction has been really positive and supportive, especially during the pandemic and I have been fortunate to hit the ground running. It is scary and daunting at times, but looking back I wish I took the plunge sooner. 2022 is looking promising to say the least. 

What does the future hold, both for Minoux and for the lighting industry as a whole?

The lighting industry has come on leaps and bounds with the growth of new technology. The new focus at the moment is all about sustainability of fittings and circularity, which has been a long time coming in my opinion. We need to work with manufacturers and future proof our designs to develop much more sustainable projects. As for Minoux, watch this space.

www.minoux.co.uk

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by Matt Waring