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Lighting Controls Podcast
Episode 129: Episode 129 - Clients Don’t Hire Us to Repeat Repeat Repeat with Emad Hasan
00:44:25
“Lighting controls aren’t just switches — they’re part of the user experience.”In this episode, l...
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- [00:00]
A
The opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the sponsors, advertisers or presenters. Advertising does not imply endorsement by the sponsors and presenters.
- [00:16]
B
Hey guys and welcome back to the Lighting Controls Podcast. It's great to have you guys here. We have a fantastic guest for you today. But before we jump into the conversation, let me take a minute to remind everyone. Today's episode is presented by the lca, the Lighting Controls Academy.
- [00:30]
A
And it's an official podcast of the national association of Innovative Lighting Distributors, or nailed. Check out our website, lightingcontrolspodcast.com where we got all of our episodes and a whole lot more. But also huge shout out to our sponsor for this episode. We cannot do this without your support. Maxlight and their C Max lighting Controls platform. If you're unfamiliar with their platform, CM CMAX I highly recommend you check them out. Max L I t-e.com CMAX it's a revolutionary triple LC focused lighting control solution, but it also has very basic implementation options as well and has this patented USBC plug capability where you can swap out the devices with their lighting controls. Ready luminaire. So I highly recommend check it out. Max L I t-e.com Cmax but let's get into the conversation. So today we have Imad. Imad, do you mind just giving us a quick breakdown on who you are and what you do?
- [01:29]
C
Yeah. My name is Imad Hassan. I am a principal and founder of Lux Foundry. We are architectural lighting designers based in the New York area.
- [01:38]
A
Well, thank you for joining. It's great to have lighting designers on the show. We try to get people from all walks in life. But you know, I think one of the interesting things about having lighting designers on the show is having this sort of conversation about what you do for lighting controls, lighting controls, design work, where things from your perspective belong. So just curious, you know, if somebody were to ask you, do you do lighting controls, what would your answer be?
- [02:07]
C
Sometimes it really depends. I have a lot of opinions about it. I mean, if it were up to me, we would do all of our lighting controls and we would be responsible for that throughout the project and through the implementation of it. And we feel like it's part of the user experience. And for us with lighting design, it's not just about how you, at least today, it's not just about how you feel in a space or how you enter a space, but it's also how you interact with that space. And lighting controls are such a huge part of it. It feels to Me wrong to pass that off to someone else to be responsible for.
- [02:51]
A
Sure.
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C
We don't always have the luxury or ability to be brought into that.
- [02:57]
A
No. And I think, you know, that is something that you kind of hear either or from lighting designers. Sometimes they're like, I wish I did all of my lighting controls. And sometimes they go, I don't want to touch lighting controls. And so, you know, what is the argument for those who are like, leave me out of the lighting controls equation here?
- [03:15]
C
Like, what's the argument they make?
- [03:17]
A
Well, no, what's, what's your argument for, like, I want this and, and lighting designers should do this.
- [03:24]
C
I mean, I, I touched on it right when we started that controls are really complicated today, at least, like the amount of options when it comes to code and what is available to users. And if, if somebody who's not responsible for the lighting takes on the lighting control design, you could have a good experience and a good lighting control system. But at least my experience has been more often than not that people who aren't responsible for the lighting, they don't really want to take responsibility for the controls or they want to do the bare minimum. They don't want to have those conversations with the user group, the owners, about like, well, what is it you want? There's, there's a, it's like a fine line between a lighting designer doing it and a controls. I'll say expert, but really an electrical engineer taking on that scope. So, you know, over the years, I've been doing this for 20 years now, and I, I see more and more that our clients want us to be responsible for it. And I see a lot of lighting designers push back on that and say, well, you know, the engineers should be doing it. But, you know, like I said, my experience has been that maybe 9 out of 10 engineers want to do it at the bare minimum. It's really not something that they want to be a part of. And I'd rather, I'd rather make sure our clients are happy in the end because at the end of the day, if the lighting controls don't work, they are coming back to me with whether I designed it or not.
- [04:57]
B
So how do you, how do you really approach that then? If, if you know that the, you seem to have this sort of. And it's not just you, right. There seems to be this sort of struggle with the engineers in general, right. In how this gets done because they're already working on so much other stuff and they get tossed into controls because ultimately it's their license, it's their stamp. So I guess that's where it gets difficult. Right. If they have to stamp the drawings, they have to kind of own it at the end of the day. How do we make that a cleaner process so that whether it's the lighting design firm or a dedicated controls team or someone who wants to truly own it, can but then have the engineer incorporate it into their set and stamp it at the end of the day so we meet all requirements, but it gets the dedication and the time that it deserves.
- [05:47]
C
That is a big question. How do I answer that? You know, by the way, this is not a knock to engineers. I think that they have so much, so many other things in a building to focus on.
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A
Right.
- [06:01]
C
And for, for somebody to say, oh, and we need you to do lighting controls even though you didn't do the lighting design. Yeah, it's, it's like, okay, they, they sort of want to just get it done and out of the way. What was your question? No, no, no. Process or.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Oh man. You know, we approach lighting controls at least a few different ways and I've tried so many different versions of this over the years where it was like, don't do any of it, do some of it, do all of it. What I've generally found is that at a minimum, we at least here feel like that the best way to approach it is to be responsible for, or we say, we call it control intent or like what the user interface is going to be like. And by establishing how the room should be controlled, it at least puts that decision making process off of the control designer or engineering team. Because I feel like a lot of times they don't have the bandwidth to figure out, well, how should the lighting controls be designed if we don't know how the lighting system is designed or what the function of the room is? You know, like, we're really the experts on how the room is supposed to operate because we're having those upfront conversations with users to understand what is, how is this space being used? What are you trying to do in this environment? How do we want it to feel? What's important to you? Do we integrate these other systems into it? We're asking those questions. So we are already owning that information or understanding what the users need. And I think that that's where we've started to take responsibility for that element at a minimum. And I think that from there is where we sort of have options of, you know, what we can do and maybe don't have the capability of doing. You know, we try to do lighting controls for all of our projects, but sometimes they're just so big and complicated that it doesn't make sense for us to do it. One of the things we also do is a lot of conversations during the proposal phase. And for me, it starts there to be really clear and upfront with who, whoever we're working with. Because they reach out for a proposal, they want to see what that fee is. They don't always read every detail.
- [08:40]
B
Right.
- [08:40]
C
I make a point to really point out the three things that are always a scope gap, and they are lighting controls, com check, and emergency lighting are always the three main things that we have to figure out. And if we figure that out in the proposal phase, it makes it a lot easier because, you know, there's no. Well, we didn't include it because that's also a lot of times where the issues happen is someone didn't include it in their scope. It's a long winded response to your question, but it could keep going.
- [09:11]
A
No, it's good. I mean, I think that that's really critical for people to hear because of the fact that you're right. Those are three major scope gaps that are very consistently found on projects if they're not well coordinated. And you might see that lighting designers get pulled in at the last second, like, oh, this wasn't part of your scope, but can you do this? And it's like, well, I wish I knew that like months ago so that I could plan accordingly and have the documentation. But, you know, the fact that you're having those upfront conversations, you know, a lot of lighting designers might shy away from that because they fear they might lose the opportunity by having that. So just if you could give us a little peek behind the curtain of those conversations, you know, what, what is that like to. To approach your clients and say, this is or isn't in the scope?
- [10:03]
C
Oh, I mean, I've never been afraid to say that to a client. That's probably where it starts, is not being afraid to have any of those conversations. Understanding that during the proposal phase, you are all making business decisions together. This is not about design and that it's better to be clear and up front. I think it's really all about the wording. You try not to say that something's, you know, this isn't in our scope or this isn't included or we can't do this. People don't like hearing that. They like hearing solutions. So we'll start with what the suggestion is. Sometimes I just will feel the client out on what I think they are interested in us doing if they're a repeat client. I have enough of a relationship where I know what they're expecting and we've been through these processes before and I'll be upfront about whether it's included or not. I'll also sometimes just break it out as a call value added service. You know, I don't like additional service or optional service. I think showing them and explaining to them why there's value in it. I have a project recently that the controls did not go well. I originally put it in as a value added service. It was not accepted. But I think that that client. We had discussions about it after the fact and talked about on the next one what the, what our capabilities are and what the advantages would have been if we had just handled it internally.
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A
Right.
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C
I can say that a lot of lighting designers, sometimes they just don't have the capacity or knowledge base to want to get into. Sure they, you know, you can get it to a point, but you can really get bogged down and dragged into a lot of details on controls. And if you're not, if you're not an expert or if you don't know how to speak the language or to find out the right information, you. You might just not be comfortable with it.
- [12:06]
A
Yeah. And so on that line of comfortability, you mentioned that sometimes projects are just way outside of your, your range of capabilities. And so, you know, can you share with us like what some of those hard lines are?
- [12:22]
C
I, I personally like to stay away from large academic buildings where it's a lot of times that's like very repetitive and it is a little bit easier for an engineer to take on. Yeah. It's not that I won't do it. It's that maybe there's a combination of lack of interest and not wanting to lay out occupancy sensors. We have ways around that, but it's still. Those kinds of projects get large and there's a lot of other work to do on our end. So similar to an engineer, we have a lot of things to look into and boxes to check that it'd be nice sometimes. Maybe we don't do that. We have, we have a smaller team. I've come from a couple of very large firms and we had an easier time to, you know, figure out controls just because you could spread the workload out. It is more of a burden on our team if we take on too much. So we're mindful of like, you know, what's the minimum we can do? How can we make sure that this still works for the project at the end of the day without, you know, being dragged into a full on building control system?
- [13:46]
B
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's, that's a, that's a good way to look at it. Right. As far as like defining scope based on the type of project sometimes because you're right. If you're doing a large educational building and you've got 50 classrooms or 75 classrooms and you know, everyone's a cut copy paste, there's. There is no reason for you to necessarily have to take something like that on when you can focus more on sort of the, the other areas of maybe the, the campus or the building that need more attention to the detail and how the lighting design affects the overall lighting of the space as opposed to standard classroom, standard cubicle farm, you know, those very typical spaces. So how do you try and divide that work up amongst your team? Do you have sort of a dedicated person on your team that handles your controls? Do you all kind of jump? How does that work? I'm just sort of curious because, you know, we, we, my firm have the same. Well, yeah, right. We have a smaller team as well. So we kind of. Usually someone will take the lead and we all kind of, you know, riff off each other and I'm just kind of curious how you guys do it.
- [14:58]
C
You know, I only started this company a couple years ago and what I've learned by starting a company is that you're not only the owner or principal, but you're also the project manager and one of the designers. And I do a lot of lighting controls myself. I try to educate the team on what our process is. We have another designer on board who can handle and understands that more at a technical level. I've noticed when you have people that come from a little bit of an engineering background and they can think with that side of their brain, they can latch onto the logic of lighting controls. To me, it is very logical how it works. That's just how I am. It doesn't mean that it stops me from being a creative designer. I just get that part easily. But I've seen a lot of people in the past who just, they just don't get it. And there's nothing wrong with that. It might just not interest them at all. One of the things I've noticed is, you know, I'm interested in doing lighting controls and I see a lot of lighting designers aren't. I think it's also just where the industry has been traditionally. Don't do it. And I, I see it as something that we should do and I also see it as a business opportunity. I, I think that it's, if you can, if you can show it as a value added service and you can convince your clients to, to do it more in the future, why not, you know, why not take on that scope and help use that as a way to build the company? There's going to be projects where you don't do it and you've got to keep your fees low. But I think there's a lot of opportunities to do it, especially on the hospitality side. I feel like that, that is one where funny enough, most lighting designers, if you talk to hospitality lighting designers, they almost always want control of that lighting because they want it to dim the right way. They want to make sure that they can control that part or at least they'll spend more time on it.
- [17:04]
A
Yep. No, and I think that that's a really interesting distinction that we don't necessarily all the time evaluate is, you know, what kind of lighting designer are you? And so, you know, is there a reason to be a little bit more focused on lighting controls? And so I think to your point, you know, the industry when it comes to just general commercial lighting controls has kind of been in the engineers court for a very long time and we're, we're seeing that pivot happen. But whereas with hospitality, I mean, you really do need that nice low end of the dimming curve to be able to provide quality lighting design. So I'm curious if maybe within the commercial and industrial world we're starting to see some of that, that sort of friction as well.
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C
Sorry, what do you mean about friction?
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A
Just, you know, poorly aligned specs where you end up with fixtures on site that aren't the right dimming type or dimming curve.
- [18:11]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think that's possible. We, we, we at least are quite broad in our market sectors. So I think it helps us make sure that that doesn't happen. I think somebody who's maybe not as familiar with working in an institutional type environment or workplace type environment might miss some of those details or miss how to address those things. I think with the right specs you can avoid that kind of friction. Most lighting designers are now are very, very clear about what percent dim they want every single fixture. So they try not to gloss over those types of things. At least a good lighting designer is going to look into that. I don't, I don't know how much friction there would be other than somebody just didn't Translate it correctly. And that can happen on any kind of project.
- [19:02]
A
Really? Sure. No. And I think. But as far as commercial and industrial, you know, I think one of the major pitfalls that Ron's company, for example, gets pulled into is DMX512, where you suddenly now have color change. You've got to cross. What's going on there?
- [19:22]
C
Just a lot. You know, there's a lot. With dmx, it's easy. I know it's easy.
- [19:27]
B
It's so easy.
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C
It is easy, you're right.
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A
But no, it's, it's. It seems so for people who aren't watching, IMOD basically put up like cross across with his fingers. So I'm curious, is there a story
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C
behind that with the dmx?
- [19:46]
A
Yeah.
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C
I mean, most of our fixtures just don't even have that as an option. It's not something that we could typically use on a. On a project basis, commercial basis. It's not that we can't use it. But you, you really find that there's a certain typology of fixture or market sector that the manufacturers are gearing it towards. So it's just, it's not that it's not easy, but I also don't, I don't find the architectural lighting systems does like control systems are built to handle DMX in the way that they're built to handle other things like dolly or 0 to 10 or phase dimming. And that's probably more on the control manufacturer side to make that decision. You really start to see like a very clear divide of manufacturers who want to embrace DMX and those who don't. And I find that the DMX side, it almost always stays, almost always theatrical or the moment you have color involved. I've done my fair bit of color changing and I find DMX very easy. Reminds me a lot of Dolly. I wish that the US market would standardize a bit more around these types of protocols that really just allow you to daisy chain everything and not have to worry about like, this is one control zone and this is the other. And they have to be wired exactly this way. I'm surprised we have not gotten there and it's 2026.
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B
Yeah. No, that is something that we talk about all the time, is why are we still doing so much analog dimming. Right. Via 0 to 10. When all of these fixtures are digital now. Right. Every LED fixture is inherently digital.
- [21:37]
C
There's a drive, then we make it analog.
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A
Right.
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B
How.
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C
That's a US Market. That's a US market thing.
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B
Europe embraces Dolly and I Know, this is a big loaded question, how do we fix that? Because we need to.
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C
I think a lot of it has to do with. And maybe this is just a generalized thought, but I do think a lot of it has to do with, with contractors familiarity with it, that even when 0 to 10 first became a thing, they, There was a lot of pushback. I saw a lot of contractors just not understand the idea that there was this. These extra two wires. It's still. But for the most part, a lot of them understand that there is this idea of two more wires. Right.
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A
Yeah.
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C
And it's not that I think that there's anything wrong with. Like I'll use Dolly as an example since it's a bit more commercial based, but I don't know why they feel like it's difficult. You know, to me, it's supposed to be easy. Right. Just wire everything together. I think an other issue I found is I've had, I've had controls manufacturers tell me that the amount of commissioning is higher and I, I don't love that. I actually think that if they invested a bit more in eating some of that commissioning cost upfront, that they could convince a lot more people to adopt those types of control protocols and build up the market more.
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A
Sure.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Well.
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B
And no, I was going to say. Sorry. Sorry. I was just. A quick follow up to that is, you're not wrong, the commissioning likely does cost more you're bringing in. Right. But at the same time, what is. And I know it's impossible to get people to understand, you're just moving the money from one pool to another. Right. We're changing the wiring, so we're reducing wire cost in many, many cases. So we're reducing time on the electrician, we're reducing conduit paths, we're just moving the money from one bucket to another. But people see that as, oh, I'm bringing in this other specialty contractor now, so why am I spending this extra money when in reality it was there the whole time, it's just moved from one bucket?
- [24:09]
C
They don't, they don't think that way. And I think a lot of times when GCs are doing budgeting or owners are doing budgeting, there's. There's sometimes like a focus just on. While the lighting controls budget just ballooned. Why? And there's sometimes that money's not coming out of instant installation that somebody didn't sit down and figure out what are we saving on this, this side of things. And unfortunately, unless there's somebody who's like really advocating for it, then it just becomes something that's not easy to do. I mean, I, I hope, and I think that we're headed there, that the future of this is that every fixture is just wirelessly controlled in the first place. That there is no protocol going across any kind of wiring, whether it's a phase Dimm or a 0 to 10 or a digital loop. That there are manufacturers who are just inherently making some of these fixtures have wireless control. I think that's going to probably be the only way that we see it become mainstream. It doesn't have to change anything other than the programming side, like the contractors have anything different to them. It's like, oh, great, we'll do it right.
- [25:27]
A
But I, I mean, I think with wireless, we have a lot of friction points even outside of the US Market. And so I'm curious, you know, I don't necessarily disagree with you when you say we should go wireless, but, you know, what do you say to the people who push back on that and say, no, I, I wired is, is the only way?
- [25:50]
C
I don't know. I haven't had anybody push back on it yet, and I've only done it a couple times. Well, I had, I, I was lucky. I had owners who wanted it. They, they liked the idea of it. They had experience with it, they saw value. I haven't tried it on a larger commercial project. Not every product, not every product has the wireless built in or has the ability to place a wireless power pack next to the fixture or near the fixture. So it's, it's, it's not all there. I like.
- [26:31]
B
Sure.
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A
Well, and I think that that's a valid point there is that, you know, as much as we like to tout where we are with lighting controls, we still have a lot of innovation to go to really be at, you know, a new peak level. So I think when it comes to wireless especially, we do have a lot of different brands with different products, and there's no one brand that's just like, okay, we can do everything you need. And as a result, you are kind of limited to whatever is available to you in resource. And so that is one of the arguments to stick to wired, the other being interference, which, you know, I think we've, we've finally started to get past that argument. But the last one is cybersecurity, which I think is just one of those big black holes that once you start talking about, it's like, well, yeah, I mean, you know, the most secure network is a network. That's not a network.
- [27:33]
C
No, you're, you're bringing up a lot of valid reasons why people might be afraid of it. And I don't think I ever push one over the other. I generally just default to a wired solution and assume it's going to be wired. And the only times I've really pushed for wireless are historic buildings where we really don't have a lot of options to run new wiring. It works great in those. In those situations, I actually think it's helped us a lot in terms of just achieving excellent design in these spaces that we couldn't do before. But otherwise, yeah, we're seeing mostly wired solutions.
- [28:14]
A
Yeah. So one of the questions we like to ask, though, is if you had a magic wand and you could change anything in our industry.
- [28:24]
C
Oh, what would you change in lighting controls?
- [28:28]
A
Yes. And lighting controls.
- [28:31]
C
Wow. I don't know what I would do with that magic wand.
- [28:39]
A
Well, I mean, we've. We've had some good answers where it's like, yeah, you know, I wish education were better, or I wish, you know,
- [28:48]
C
oh, I was going to say, I. I wish that. That all of the owners would just automatically embrace and assume that lighting designer was going to do it. And every lighting designer also embraced and assumed that they were going to do it. It would make things a lot easier. You know, funny enough, we're having this conversation and I'm thinking about how I find the way that engineers approach lighting controls varies across the country. That New York engineers are. I don't know what lighting designers in the past have done to them. They are terrified to touch our lighting design, and rightfully so. So. But then I find on, like, the West Coast, I have found many engineers assume that they're doing all of these things. And I've had to say, no, no, we're going to do that part, or, no, no, we're going to do this, or no, we're going to do that. And don't touch my fixture schedule. And I've asked. And when I asked him, like, you know, usually on the side, it's like, what's with that? He's like, that's how we always do it. And I do find that there's a coastal difference in terms of how that's approached.
- [30:04]
B
Yeah. There seems to be differences across the country, not just with engineers, but with, you know, the electricians and as well, and how they handle some of these things. We see a lot of those differences. You mentioned fixture schedules, so I'm curious because you can put a ton of time into a lighting design.
- [30:19]
C
Yeah.
- [30:19]
B
But if the electrician turns around with the owner or with the contractor and starts to ve your package, things can go south quickly as far as how your design is then achieved. So how, how much time do you kind of put into submittal review from the contractor to make sure that you're getting what you want? And then when it does get subbed, how do you handle that?
- [30:45]
C
Oh man. We put, I, I sometimes I think we put too much time into it, but it's valid. It's a fix. Your schedule needs to be written in a way that you can at least point to certain performance requirements to protect the lighting design, whether it's color, CRI, TM30 information, controllability, dimming range, size, quality. And you can, but you can put all that stuff in and on certain types of projects, somebody's going to turn around and they're going to ve it and the owner, certain owners are going to care. I have owners who don't want anyone to mess with the schedule. They have invested in us to do this work. They don't want to mess with it unless like they talk to us about it. I didn't really answer your question because I feel like there's so many ways that this gets handled. I handle the way I approach specs and some lighting designers do not agree with me for doing this, but I handle it differently depending on the market and the client. I will not go and treat every single project the same and say it has to be this way. There's no flexibility. That is not how the market in the real world work. I can do that on luxury projects, on hotels, I can do that with high end residences, with projects with really high end architecture. And I know that we have the support of the design team and the owner to back that. However, on the other side of the equation, we do institutional work where you're automatically required to have a multi name specific. So we have to write it in a way that these multi names can do it. So there's almost like, I like the idea of multi name spec even on these other projects because you're sort of giving them this window to say like, well look, I've already given you three manufacturers. Why are you, why are you submitting this fourth brand that we haven't even considered? And the owner starts to even say, well yeah, use one of these other ones, right? But then there's projects where you just know it's going to get ve and if you know and you know that up front, we build that into our proposals. We really do account for it. So that time Is. Is there. And I'll use multifamily as a project. Every multi family project we do. I know, I already just know the owner wants a round of. Take a look at substitutions and they tell me they do. And I'm not afraid to do that if I know that it's happening. And that's a service that they're looking for and they want good lighting design, but they can't necessarily afford the fixture that I want to use. You know, why should I push them into that and get into an argument that might be the last project I ever do with them? And for some lighting designers that's totally fine. But we are, we've really, you know, we try to be broad in terms of our market sectors, but also the terms of like the, the level of the project. We just trying to work with people who have. Want good lighting design. And on the control side, I think the same thing starts to happen is like, what. How do you pick one control manufacturer over another or allow certain ones. There are certain ones that I will not use and I think I have valid reasons for not using them. Sure. But then you got to fight that and you got to push for that and explain why and, and get into it.
- [34:20]
A
Right.
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C
And sometimes it doesn't matter.
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B
Right?
- [34:23]
A
Yeah, right.
- [34:23]
C
And then the user uses it and says, why do we have this control system? My hands up and I go, I don't know. Ask Ross.
- [34:33]
A
Because it was less expensive.
- [34:35]
C
Oh, I had a, I had a, A theater once and they didn't have a. They didn't have the theater manager hired yet. He designed everything based on their feedback. And then he comes in and like, like right at the end, during construction, he comes right. He's like, why'd you do it this way? Because you weren't hired yet. And this is the decision that was made. And he did not like my answer. But it really was like, without that kind of feedback, we're gonna, we're gonna make decisions based on the information we have.
- [35:06]
A
Yeah, no, well, so we're almost out of time here and I just kind of want to package what we've talked about because, you know, I think these are all really crucial, critical pieces of information for people to think about, especially lighting designers when it comes to lighting controls. And you know, there really is sort of this adaptability that is critical in our industry, especially right now. It maybe used to be that you could just cookie cutter your documentation, cookie cutter your conversations, cookie cutter your proposal process. I don't know, but my guess is probably not. It's just that now it's even harder to get away with that. And so being adaptable, not just to your clients, but to the areas that you're working in, to the labor force that's going to support the project, to the project's needs and the controls platform that the project needs to, you know, kind of lean on. All of this is really important to keep in mind. And I think there's a real impulse for people to just kind of get into a groove and just do the same sort of thing again and again and again without realizing. Realizing that, you know, you, you do need to modify, you do need to update as you're going, and you need to be aware of the things that are coming at you from the project. You know, with the proposal itself. Just saying, you know, this is not in our scope. You need to find somebody to cover that scope. That is a critical conversation to have, especially because we have these scope gaps that pop up, you know, simple projects, it could just be, okay, your comm check. But for more complicated projects, it could be, you know, who's providing the DMX on this integration point. So having those conversations really helps ensure that the project's going to be carried forward. But then making sure that your documentation is up to, you know, local requirements or local standards or because contractors, they do vary. And so, you know, a harsher example is if you do documentation in the states and you bring that same documentation across the pond to Europe, it's not going to happen. It's not going to work. They're going to be like, what the heck is this? And vice versa as well. So, you know, ultimately it's. It's being aware of what the expectations of you, the designer, are and where your role is in that team. And so, you know, it sounds like with, with your company, that's exactly what you're doing. You're trying to stay adaptable, stay flexible enough so that you can really move with the needs of the project. Which is one of the things that Ron and I tout all the time when it comes to just lighting controls selection. You know, Ron and I always get asked, like, what's your favorite lighting controls manufacturer? And we're like, for what project?
- [37:56]
C
Yeah. What do you want to do?
- [37:58]
A
Right. And so having brands. Yeah, yeah. So having having that array of options, not just for product but for workflow as well, really gives you that edge in this industry, especially, again, because we're seeing so much shift from one responsible party to another and then potentially some scope gap that, that pops up out of there. But, you know, I probably missed several things that we talked about in there, but that was the one that, that jumped out at me.
- [38:33]
C
Yeah, I mean, you know, clients don't hire us because they want us to repeat, repeat, repeat. If they do, they're probably overpaying. They can get that from someone else. They're usually our clients. And most lighting designers that I talk to, at least their, their clients come to them because they have a unique problem that needs to be solved. The architecture is different, the user group is different. This is going to change the things we did in the past. You can build off of that, but you need to be adaptable. And I used to, when I was a lot younger, I used to complain when things didn't go smooth, when, why is that happening again? Why is this project not going this way? And then one day it clicked. That is my job. Part of my job is to adapt to that. And the clients expect us to make, manage those situations. And it really changed the way I approach all of those things. And I turned it into, you know, more of a problem solving, let's figure this out versus complaining about, like, why isn't this working? And to me, lighting controls for a while now have been this problem that people are trying to figure out. And I still don't think we have it right, even here. You know, I think that there are ways we can improve, but I don't want to, I don't want to be the one who has nothing to do with it and stays out of it, because I do want users at the end of the day to experience the lighting in a space from all facets, from just walking in versus how they're going to interact with it. So. Yep.
- [40:17]
B
No, it's a great point. Thank you for such an amazing conversation. And you're right, it's. More designers need to take their ball and, and go home. Right. They need to take it and go with them because unfortunately it's. You have a vision and, and it. Your vision works with the architect and the owner and the architecture, and, and you're trying to put this entire thing and make this entire thing come to life. And, and lighting really can do that. And I don't know if enough people understand that in some regards, and if the design intent doesn't meet your vision, you're never going to achieve that goal. The owner's never going to see what you saw in your mind's eye. What you had drawn and what you had visioned never comes to fruition. And I don't think enough people understand not just how it's so disheartening for any designer to not see the work you truly put in to make this project unique. Because you're right, you cannot cut, copy and paste and repeat, repeat, repeat. Every project is unique. Every owner is different, every building is different. They're never exactly the same. I don't care what anyone says, they're never exactly the same.
- [41:33]
C
Yeah.
- [41:33]
B
And you put so much time and you pour all of your time and energy into creating this art and then to not see it turn out exactly as you expect is just, it's so painful sometimes. And I completely understand, and I wish everyone understood that the way that, that you do, because it is such an important piece of making the project successful. And if we could get more designers to, to grab on and truly own their controls, whether they bring in a trusted partner or they bring someone else onto their team, however they want to handle it is fine. But bring that to your team so that you have full control. And I think once we really get to that point, we'll start seeing more and more and more successful projects and more owner and buy and contractor buy in to how this process needs to truly, truly happen.
- [42:33]
C
I want to amend the answer to one of your questions, which is like, what if I had one wish and I could, I, it hit me that if I had one wish, I would have an in house controls expert and that's what they would do is lighting controls. And I know, I, I, I know a lot of lighting designers don't like that answer, but you know, from a business standpoint, I think that it would add such value to the project. And you know, most lighting designers, it's like the time that I go to them, okay, time to figure out the lighting controls. And it's like you don't want to or it's like, how do we jam this in at the very last second with all the other things, I'd love to have an in house controls expert that takes that kind of burden away from the designers who are thinking about light in a different way.
- [43:25]
A
So.
- [43:25]
C
Yep, yep.
- [43:26]
B
No, you're totally right. I love it. Ahmad, thank you again so much. Really appreciate your time today. Absolutely fantastic conversation.
- [43:33]
C
Yeah, thank you for having me.
- [43:35]
B
I will close this out and remind everyone. Today's episode is presented by the lca, the Lighting Controls Academy.
- [43:41]
A
And it's an official podcast of the national association of Innovative Lighting Distributors. Are nailed. Check out our website, lightingcontrolspodcast.com got our all of our episodes episodes and a whole lot more, but also huge shout out to our sponsor. We cannot do this without their support Max Light and their CMAX lighting controls platform. You want to talk about adaptability? They have adaptability. You should check it out with their USB C port patented technology to be able to go from basic lighting controls all the way up to triple LC. So check them out. Max Lite.com Cmax but thanks for joining us and Imad, thank you. This was an awesome conversation.