At Fublis, our Design Dialogues series is dedicated to showcasing the innovative minds and creative journeys of architects and designers who are making a significant impact in the industry. Through in-depth conversations, we celebrate their achievements and explore their unique perspectives, offering invaluable insights that inspire both peers and emerging talent.

In this edition, we feature Light Collab, a forward-thinking lighting design consultancy that seamlessly integrates technical expertise with artistic vision. Known for their ability to shape and enhance architectural spaces through the thoughtful application of light, Light Collab has worked on a diverse range of projects, from national monuments to contemporary commercial spaces. Their work transcends mere illumination—each project tells a story, carefully balancing aesthetics, sustainability, and functionality.

From the intricate challenge of lighting The Reserve’s onyx façade to the seamless integration of grow lights in Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay, Light Collab’s approach is deeply rooted in collaboration, research, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. Their ability to navigate cultural contexts, heritage conservation regulations, and cutting-edge lighting technology highlights the evolving role of lighting in shaping our built environment.

Join us as we delve into Light Collab’s design philosophy, their approach to overcoming technical and creative challenges, and their vision for the future of architectural lighting. This conversation offers a rare glimpse into the meticulous craftsmanship and innovation that define their work.

Light Collab’s portfolio spans diverse project types, from religious monuments to commercial spaces. How does your design philosophy adapt to the unique requirements of such varied environments?

Yah Li Toh: In Light Collab, we believe in being a catalyst to inspire and create new perspectives and we challenge the status quo. We start from zero to examine the current status, explore challenges and turning them into opportunities and create a narrative that we can help elevate and bring more values to the world around us, not just in the world of perception, aesthetics and beauty but the various spectrum of what light can do for the people and also our environment.

Using light to reveal and accentuate the core principles of architectural design, Light Collab specialises in the art of creating sustainable luminous environments, to enhance the visual environment and experience. Thus, whether it is our first monument, first supermarket, all the firsts, we follow the same principles to examine the status, what are the possibilities and what the vision is, so that we can come up with a narrative and a better solution. Light just became the medium we are using, to help create the desired outcome.

Integrating lighting into The Reserve’s onyx façade was a major challenge. How did you balance achieving a uniform glow while ensuring minimal spill light into the interior spaces, and what were the key takeaways from this process?

Yah Li Toh: Very often, the architects might have their own narrative and vision of what they hope to achieve in totality. While we embrace the challenge of making it happen technically, it is also a difficult process. Lighting solution or concept is not a beautiful rendered image, but many things need to be considered. in this case, the facade was really complex as behind the facade, lies many different types of spaces – from back of house facilities such as store rooms, toilets, lift lobbies, meeting rooms, lounge areas, and even a roof top garden. The conditions are different and lots of studies were done to understand the the interior lighting spill light, or blank walls or even even how do we still conceal the facade lighting for ease of maintenance, to avoid the direct view of the luminaires and to conceal them yet, trying to achieve an even illumination and keeping the power consumption as low as possible. The key take-ways involve having to communicate with our collaborators, architects, installers, etc to understand and to make changes to the design/ installation and wiring process to accommodate these ideas, to turn it into a reality. The process and communication and getting different parties to come together to let them understand our considerations, takes a long time as everyone has their own priorities. At any point, if we have given up communicating or one party decided to give up, the design would not have happened. It takes an entire village for a vision to be realized. Very often, clients and collaborators only see the time we spent designing and presenting, but the time for awareness ,discussing and ensuring everyone is on board the same vision, looking at details, takes double or triple the amount of time.

The project involved illuminating a 30-metre-tall working silver vault while ensuring both functionality and visual impact. How did you approach lighting design in a way that enhanced the vault’s dramatic presence without compromising its operational needs?

Yah Li Toh: The vault has team’s operational needs for accessing and storage. There is also a certain illuminance that the insurance and team require to be able to see. The aisles between the rows of 16 metres tall shelves are narrow. Thus careful consideration of where the glare and viewing angle of various parties are challenging. We would like to achieve vertical illumination of the shelves so that the labels and silver can be seen from working level and also from the 5th storey where the visitors can view from the silver cliff.

Given the unique materiality of The Reserve—onyx, metal, and glass—how did material reflectivity, transparency, and absorption affect your lighting choices, and what innovative solutions did you employ to enhance these materials’ natural qualities?

Yah Li Toh: Each material’s properties need to be studied and careful. In addition to simulations as a first cut, numerous mock-ups were done to observe and verify the lighting effect against the materials. Visual check is important to verify as certain properties cannot be simulated.

In your experience, how does cultural context influence your lighting design choices, especially in projects located outside of Singapore?

Yah Li Toh: Being open-minded and understanding the context is important. Understanding that, can bridge conversations with clients and collaborators. With good conversations, it allow us to explore possibilities and challenge status quo, thus, let client be receptive too to new ideas. We also need to adapt quickly to various cultures, whether it is the way of working, solutions, resources, budget.

The lighting concept at Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay had to accommodate both biophilic design and hospitality ambiance. How did you balance the technical needs of grow lights with the visual and experiential expectations of hotel guests?

Yah Li Toh: The challenges of lighting design involve introducing layers of light in the impressive atrium space, working with limited existing lighting points, integrating the new and old elements, and the trees and planting scheme unto the cascading planters. The atrium receives limited daylight exposure and poses as a challenge to the survival of the trees and plants. While grow lights are required to support the growth of the garden, achieving certain technical requirements of photosynthetic active radiation levels, the general concern was how the exposed grow lights will co-exist with the hotel guests and even complement the ambience for the hotel.

The lighting concept thus challenges this and using very controlled optics, high RA9, colour rendering and tunable white solution of the grow lights, we are able to create the atmosphere of being in the forest in the daytime in 3800K, while evening approaches, the lighting ambience transforms into an atmospheric garden at 3100K. The lighting level changes throughout the day, responding to the natural lighting environment and the needs of the greenery. The grow lights double up to support growth and form part of the overall scenes and ambience of the atrium, which was originally too dark before the renovation.

The transformation of Richard Lippold’s Orchidea into a dynamic light art piece is a striking feature of the redesign. What was the creative and technical process behind choreographing the interaction of light with the metallic suspended sculpture?

Yah Li Toh: The idea first came about when we were about to complete the renovation works. In the impressive atrium by John Portman is the American artist, Richard Lippold’s suspended sculpture, Orchidea. The sculpture is made of metallic forms and we felt that it is a great opportunity to bring life to the atrium each evening. Transitioning from a gardenscape, it turns into a futuristic scape of light and sound, bringing out the artistic playfulness of the on-site architectural elements by architect’s John Portman’s impressive atrium space, American Sculptor’s Richard Lippold’s hanging sculpture, Orchidea and the newly transformed interior garden scape. We started by studying the potential locations of new luminaires, which should be least obtrusive and disruptive to the soon to be completed works. We also listened to lots of scores and music compositions and finally shorted the music piece. We next worked on the colur scheme that can complement the sculpture and neo-futuristic themes, resulting in the 2 and a half minute light show, which will engage onsite volumes, planes and with the Orchidea as one of the key elements of the light show, enhancing interaction of light and space with the metallic suspended wires, geometric forms soaring through the atrium and engaging the atrium on the whole, and further bringing out the mood of euphoric futurism, spiritual aspiration. The overall lighting concept strives to enhance and complement the built form versus the soft forms of nature, with views from the bar, the bridge, the atrium and the guestroom corridors.

Restoring a national monument such as the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, Singapore while adhering to conservation regulations presents a unique challenge. How did you navigate the restrictions to introduce modern lighting solutions without compromising the church’s historical integrity?

Yah Li Toh: Challenges for the lighting design also includes studying the availability of lighting points, possibility of running new cabling and trying to integrate exposed wiring and control cables as an architectural feature without being too obtrusive and staying true to the conservation guidelines. Careful consideration on placement of new luminaires and enhancing spires, the overall façade and positioning surface type wall-mounted uplighters at the corners of columns so that the columns appear as shadow, while walls are lit. Above the porch stands a statue of an angel blowing a trumpet. while keeping to conservation regulations with no impact to the core and shell.

The strategic placement of uplighters and narrow-beam spotlights helped to shape the perception of space within the church. How did you approach the layering of light to accentuate the neo-Gothic architecture while maintaining a sacred and contemplative atmosphere?

Yah Li Toh: For the interior, lighting various elements and layers, including introduction of new modern pendants with up and downwards emission on different circuit, so that they can be dimmable and controlled separately. The introduction of small spotlights to highlight features, a simple RGBWW strip with detail were also integrated to respond to the client’s request for flexibility for various scenes on special occasions. Preset lighting scenes were set up, so that it allow various lighting needs.

Looking ahead, as lighting technology continues to evolve, how do you see the role of architectural lighting shifting—particularly in heritage conservation and adaptive reuse projects—and what legacy do you hope Light Collab will leave for future generations of lighting designers?

Yah Li Toh: Architectural lighting is a combination of art and science. More awareness of what lighting designers do is needed. For Light Collab, we hope to be able to demonstrate and also bring greater awareness of how important and amazing this intangible material such as light, be able to gain greater consideration in our environment, whether it is for human perception, or for well-being, efficiency, creating nightscapes and overall consideration for biodiversity and more people will be willing to consider the importance and quality of light. As more people are concerned about the quality of well-being, and other elements, we hope that people will also be aware of this essential element and the contribution of lighting designers.