Professional Lighting Designers' Association
The Professional Lighting Designers Association (PLDA), formerly known as European Lighting Designers' Association (ELDA+), is an international association of lighting designers whose work primarily involves them in architectural lighting design. Based in Gütersloh, Germany, the organisation was originally created as a European entity. However, since its founding in 1994, the organisation has expanded beyond the boundaries of Europe and has many members outside of Europe in Asia and North America.
The Association
The Professional Lighting Designers' Association PLDA was originally founded as the European Lighting Designers' Association ELDA+ in 1994 in Frankfurt/D. The founders were Georges Berne/F, Johannes Dinnebier/D, Erwin Döring/D, Francesco Iannone/I, Heinrich Kramer/D, Alison Ritter/UK, Joachim Ritter/D, Lucy Rittner/F and Serena Tellini/I.
PLDA is a voluntary federation of lighting designers and lighting consultants who are active on an international scale. Their purpose is to increase the reputation of the profession and to establish the profession as such in its own right.
Membership
There are different membership categories which one can apply to - membership fees are organized accordingly.
Voting members are Fellow members, Professional members and Associate members. The Fellow members are the members that supported the association in particular as well as the founders of the association. Professional members are those who own an independent practice and have a certain number of years of experience in lighting design. Associate members are those who work in an independent practice.
Non-voting members are Design members, Student members an Affiliate members. Design members are designers that own an independent practice. There are also Design members which formerly were Student members who upgraded for their first year after university. Affiliate members are those who are not full time lighting designers. These are mainly very interested in lighting design, but have not studied lighting design, for example architects.
Literature
The official magazine of the organisation is the Professional Lighting Design. Every member receives the magazine automatically. The VIA-Verlag, the publishing company of the magazine, retains very close ties with PLDA. The publishing company organises many events for the association.
Publisher Joachim Ritter and his wife Alison Ritter, who is currently PLDA's Director General, were two of the nine founders of the association.
PLDA shares its head office with VIA-Verlag.
Education
The Professional Lighting Designers' Association believes that education is the key to establishing Lighting Design as a serious profession. The association thus dedicates a large portion of its time to the organisation and support of education programmes at university level. For example in Stockholm/S at KTH, the Hochschule Wismar/D, Fachhochschule Hildesheim/D or the Fachhochschule Coburg/D.
The Workshop Programme with up to four major workshops a year gives students and young designers the opportunity to work in teams under the guidance of a professional lighting designer to develop and implement a lighting design concept on a real project. Some universities have these workshops in their curriculum.
The Professional Lighting Designers' Association stages the Light Focus conference once a year, usually in conjunction with a major lighting fair event, e.g. Light+Building in Frankfurt/D or Euroluce in Milan/I. The sessions cover topics of interest and relevance to all those involved in architectural lighting design and bring to light a variety of professional themes.
The Professional Lighting Designers' Association stages the Vox Juventa conference for young designers plus a Unis.net infotainment quiz once a year. The winning speaker/quiz team receive money prizes.
The Professional Lighting Designers' Association is key in networking universities and schools around the globe offering quality Architectural Lighting Design programmes.
Workshops
PLDA, hosts a number of practical workshops, which are organized by the event management of VIA publishing, in which various lighting projects are carried out in areas of a selected town or city. In this way, the general public is educated and shown what lighting design means and that it can help to improve the urban night scape.
The town of Alingsås, Sweden is the most regular partner. In 2009 PLDA and Alingsås celebrated their tenth year of working together.
Others have been carried out in Jyväskylä, Finland, Winterthur, Switzerland, Birminham, United Kingdom Lüdenscheid, Germany, Liverpool, United Kingdom or Stavanger and Notodden in Norway.
Council
Policy making for PLDA is done by the association's council.
- President Martin Lupton/UK
- Vice President Paul Traynor/UK
- Director of Membership Tapio Rosenius/FIN
- Director of Education Jean Sundin/USA
- Director of International Development NN
- Director for Standards of Professional Practice Mario Rechsteiner/CH
- Treasurer Enrique Peiniger/USA
- Director of Sustainability Kevan Shaw/UK
Past Presidents
- Heinrich Kramer/D
- Francesco Iannone/I
- Gad Giladi/IL
- Jan Ejhed/S
- Paul Traynor/UK
Elections are every two years at the Annual General Meeting.