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 members who are deemed to have excelled in contributing to the Architectural Lighting Design profession and to PLDA. Professional members are those who own an independent practice or work in an independent practice, and have a certain number of years of experience in lighting design. The same applies to Associate members, except their number of years' experience is less.
Non-voting members are Design members (independent, but with little or no experience as an independent designer), Student members and Affiliate members. Affiliate members are those who are not full time lighting designers, but are very interested in lighting design or need it for their profession.
Collaboration
The official magazine of the organization is the Professional Lighting Design, which is published by the VIA-Verlag. Every member receives the magazine automatically. The VIA-Verlag maintains very close ties with PLDA by, for example, organizing many events for the association.
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, Birmingham, 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.