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[briefing] With Steensen Varming opening a lighting design office in London we speak to Associate Emrah Baki Ulas who, together with fellow Associate Mirjam Roos, has moved from Sydney to the UK capital to develop the UK and European market for the engineering and design practice.
What is the story of Steensen Varming? Steensen Varming is a leading design practice with 83 years of history. Our founders have worked with some of the most influential people of their time, including Niels Bohr, Arne Jacobsen and Jørn Utzon. The company was established in Copenhagen in the 1930’s. The minimal and elegant Danish design approach has been engrained into our work since then. Some forty years ago, the construction of the Sydney Opera House brought the company to Sydney, Australia and we have been involved and associated with this world icon since then. Today we operate from Sydney, London, Hong Kong and Copenhagen, with a new office location underway for New York. We are well-known particularly in Australasia and hope to develop our portfolio further in Europe. Is Steensen Varming still involved in the Sydney Opera House? Yes, the Sydney Opera House is very important to us. It has a unique history also, both architecturally and in terms of how it transformed Sydney. The new lighting masterplan, developed in collaboration with Utzon Architects and Johnson Pilton Walker and endorsed by Utzon, is ensuring that the Opera House is perceived as intended. Why did you decide to set up Steensen Varming in London? Aspiring to work internationally with likeminded people and on some of the highest calibre projects and becoming a global firm; a geographical expansion was in the books for us for a while. Our founders established new offices in UK and Ireland already during the ‘40s and ‘50s, working on iconic projects such as St Catherine’s College with Arne Jacobsen, so the re-opening of our Copenhagen and London offices in the past few years has been a natural way for us to reengage with our heritage as well as setting in motion our strategy for international growth. We know that London is a key hub, especially in the world of lighting design. So Mirjam and I are here with the aim to establish our lighting design team, but also contribute to representing Steensen Varming as a whole, building on the great work our colleagues have been doing over the years. As I mentioned, a New York office is also in the pipeline, and beside being very important on its own, our London business is also important for future plans of growing towards the Americas. We hope to increase the lighting design activity for Steensen Varming in the UK straight away. Even though Steensen Varming has a great portfolio, we have to make the name and what it stands for known. We have challenges ahead but we also have the
experience of the firm behind us. How long have you been in London? We arrived here two days before Brexit! How long do you plan to stay in London? We plan on staying long enough to see the development of our London office, increasing our lighting design activities and undertaking new exciting projects in the UK. That being said, only time will tell. How did you get into lighting design? In my early years in lighting, when I lived in Istanbul, I was involved in stage and art lighting. I studied electrical engineering but then I discovered a way to combine art and science in lighting design. I went on to Wismar, Germany to take the postgraduate lighting design course. After a brief but very inspiring internship with Georgios Paisidis, I moved to Australia to join Steensen Varming. What projects are you working on? We have a wide range of very interesting lighting projects on at the moment in different parts of the world. What are the advantages of having a global team? Lighting design has always been a global business. It’s very advantageous to be able to call upon the expertise of the different individuals around the world. Our team has designers with specific strengths, and we are good at different aspects of what we do. They all add to one another. Also, when you have several different regions you can shift your attention to wherever its needed as times change. How do you see the role of the lighting designer changing in the future? Technology will inevitably change what we do and how we work. It is likely that a lot of the day-to-day work of a lighting professional will be undertaken by artificial intelligence in the not-so-distant future. The value of what we can offer will shift. This will affect the way we work, why and when someone needs our expertise and how we charge for our work altogether, I believe. www.steensenvarming.com