ZEKİ KADİRBEYOĞLU / ZKLD Lighting Design Studio
Could you tell us about yourself?
After having graduated from Robert College, I completed my education of Electrical Engineering at İstanbul Technical University. I worked as project coordinator in several domestic and foreign architectural project and have been founder-director of ZKLD Studio as an IALD Professional Member lighting designer since 2009 with the experience I gained in many fields of design and construction when I became the co-founder/partner of Total Lighting in 1988.
As ZKLD Studio where we provide architectural lighting design services, we were entitled as the first independent lighting design center approved by Ministry of Industry and Technology in the beginning of 2018. With our office at Dubai Design District as well as İstanbul studio, ZKLD continue to fulfill its responsibilities towards employer and architecture within the scope of project’s design integrity in accordance with the ethical rules of IALD (International Association of Lighting Designers).
What is the importance of light in our lives for you?
We cannot see anything, produce any food and cannot communicate without light which is the main element of maintenance of life in the world. With their effect on our behaviors, too, natural and artificial lights are some of the most important factors in architecture. One can make it possible to attract users’ attention and excite them with light and lighting which form our visual world and through which we communicate with the atmosphere of the designed space.
What should be considered in the design of lighting?
Components such as amount of light, color of light, indoor and outdoor distributions of light in the space to be lighted are always among the points to be considered while which functions the space designed by the architecture will have will take us, as lighting designers, to the right lighting solution. Lighting design is a discipline that is possible with coordination among several different practices.
Could you compare the past and present of lighting?
With the current position of technology today, rising trends include video mapping & projection mapping, VR technologies, information & communication technologies (ICT), Internet of Things (IoT), Bluetooth and digital applications that optimize efficiency of all lighting services in the lighting design. From a global aspect of the lighting industry, there is a remarkable increase in education, guidance, programs, activities and unions for lighting designers in Europe, America, England, Singapore, China and Arab Emirates, especially in Dubai. These educational models should be taken as examples and programs should be planned to make progress in cooperation with universities.
What should be in the forefront in lighting? Esthetics or functionality?
The question “Is form followed by function, or is function is the priority?” has transformed into “form and function are one” in design, and the point is to create healthy, exhaustive, functional urban and space areas which will compel individuals to be productive. Human-focused designs are the most basic point in empowerment of social texture, formation of identity and creation of a more powerful sense of place.
What do you make of the LED technology?
With the LED technology, we can bring benefits such as efficient lighting and control systems, practically higher application efficiency than the traditional lighting, minimization of setbacks due to temperature differences, control of light-color distributions and flexibility of design. Smaller source of point light, longer source life and convenience of maintenance offer advantages in several design applications which we could not even imagine in the past. Productions according to the LED source and change in these production models provides us infinite opportunities where light is more dominant in architectural design details. It is also more convenient in façade applications and lighting of UV-sensitive objects/or materials such as ones in museums and art galleries with the advantage lower heat dissipation.
What is the place and importance of lighting in architectural and urban design?
Smart city & building lightings continue to be widespread rapidly in the urban-construction pattern. Efficiency-enhancing technological solutions for energy saving should be included in the programs by authorities. We, as ZKLD Studio, are happy to have participated in the projects that create a deep sense of place and present symbols of cultural exchange with the right practice of light and lighting such as Astana Khan Shatyr, Zorlu Center, Sipopo Congress Center, Dakar Congress Center, Bomontiada, Piri Reis University, and Konya Selçuklu Culture Center.
