"If you can think it, SAKMA can make it possible"
I am a light activist. I try to show the multiple qualities of light from all areas of my work, as an Architect, as a teacher, as a designer, as a researcher, as a popularizer, etc.
Nowadays my days are much calm than in previous times. I personally organize my schedule, which gives me freedom and a lot of flexibility.
When you work on what you like, you do not have the feeling that you get up to work but to live a new day. I live each day focused on the different projects that I am developing. Usually, I can't finish what I had planned to do each day.
I have been a teacher at the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) for 30 years and I have seen how the lack of interest or possibility of many architects to design artificial lighting in their projects has made figures such as the Lighting Designer appear. Initially as part of the same lighting companies and currently as a independent lighting designer studios.
I have always claimed that the most suitable professional to design lighting in space and architecture is the Architect, both due to academic training and legal attributions.
The Lighting Designer is a professional started in the US and currently recognized in other countries, who to have full rights in Spain would need a university academic training that would grant them an official title and full legally recognition.
Something different are the artistic or ephemeral installations that do not have as their main objective to contribute to the functionality and expression of the architectural space on a permanent basis.
I wish there was an architect on the architectural studios in charge of artificial lighting. Natural lighting has always been decided by the Architect. It is not the window manufacturers who make the lighting project, I wish the same for artificial lighting.
Collaborations with Lighting Designers or other specialists would be desirable to be linked to the project from the beginning of the project,. It is an absolute mistake to think of artificial lighting when the project is conceptually finished.
Years ago, this question would surely have been relationship between Architects and Engineers, professionals with very different training and approaches to the same problem. I believe that relationships between professionals can be valued based on specific personal experiences and not generalized as collectives. There are many examples of successful collaborations between Engineers and Architects as well as between Lighting Designers and Architects.
It began in the last years of my career. One of my professor encouraged me to do a postgraduate course in lighting, and thus little by little I discovered the passion for light. At the end of my degree, I was working at the Barcelona City Council during the preparation of the 1992 Olympic games, taking care of urban projects and assuming the lighting design.
In architecture F. LL. Wright has influenced me by his ability to innovate and integrate natural and artificial lighting into the architectural project.
As Lighting Designer, undoubtedly the figure of R. Kelly, through his collaboration with great architects such as Mies Van der Rohe and Louis Khan, affirmed me in the vision that the Architect should pay more attention to the lighting project.
And as artists J. Turrel made me discover the personal and emotional relationship between the human being and the light.
The history of lighting is very exciting, but also very recent. We have advanced a lot conceptually and technologically. From not having artificial light to being able to fully control all its parameters, generating effects, causing various sensations and emotions.
The current situation has made us focus on man and life, I believe that the next decades enlightenment will advance towards aspects focused on the well-being and health of people, I believe that it will become a basic medicine.
In 2015, together with Mercedes Arroyo (ICandela magazine Ex Founder), we organized the first international ICAL artificial light photography contest and SAKMA was one of the sponsors. That was the beginning of a great friendship.
When I think about SAKMA in my head I comes proper names, such as Sonia, Salva, José, Ángel, etc. professionals which it is very easy to connect. They perfectly understand the proposals and have the ability to make them come true. I would say "if you can think it, SAKMA can make it possible."
Yes. Right now we are working on an experimental project for a “Housing Laboratory Building” that is being built in Oslo, Norway. It is a three-year project and I think it will mark a new way of working with light.
My latest works in Andorra, especially the NAAN house with Enric Dilmè, have allowed me to fully explore the possibilities of light in architecture.
I'm an architect. When I am working in a project or design, light is always present. In fact, when we are in front of a blank paper, just before starting to draw, is when I have the perception of the maximum splendor of light.
The pandemic will pas as it happen before in history and it will surely improve many things. But in such an unequal world there are many challenges ahead and I only wish that light reaches all people to improve their lives.
Dr. Arquitecto y profesor de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona ETSAB desde 1990. Imparte cursos, clases y conferencias de Grado y de Máster en Universidades, empresas, organismos públicos y privados nacionales e internacionales.
Es el director del Taller de Estudios Lumínicos de la UPC Barcelona-Tech donde desarrolla trabajos de investigación en el ámbito de la iluminación artificial y natural, la sostenibilidad y el ahorro energético. Es autor de numerosas patentes, diseños y proyectos de iluminación arquitectónica, urbana y monumental. Ha escrito varios libros sobre iluminación artificial y condicionamiento climático y publicado numerosos artículos en revistas especializadas de iluminación y arquitectura.
Ha proyectado y construido, como arquitecto responsable, más de 100 proyectos de arquitectura de usos diversos como viviendas colectivas y unifamiliares, equipamientos, industria, interiorismo, rehabilitación, urbanismo, diseño de producto y diseño lumínico. Trabajó en el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona en la preparación de los juegos olímpicos realizando proyectos de urbanización, de diseño de mobiliario urbano y de iluminación interior y urbana. Ha obtenido varios premios en Concursos de Arquitectura y ha realizado varias exposiciones de fotografía.
Habitualmente colabora como asesor con estudios de arquitectura en el ámbito del diseño lumínico natural y artificial, de las instalaciones y el acondicionamiento ambiental, la eficiencia y el ahorro energético. Es miembro del Comité Español de iluminación y de la Agrupación de Expertos en instalaciones de COAC.
