Maida
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Maida has worked in the Lighting industry for over 25 years. She has completed numerous high-profile and award-winning projects in the UK and overseas across various industry sectors, including master planning and regeneration, commercial, luxury residential, retail, hotels, education, arts, heritage, ecclesiastical and public buildings.
Her creative design experience extensively covers both daylight and architectural lighting design. Having both science and architecture-related degrees established her open thinking and innovation paths in the lighting design of her projects. Her initial multidisciplinary training in the built environment gave invaluable insights into the work of other consultants which is vital to our close working relations with other practices in the design and construction industry.
Maida often gives presentations at professional conferences and lectures at highly acclaimed schools of architecture such as the University of Nottingham, Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL, Glasgow School of Art and Madrid Polytechnic. She also contributes to the work of professional lighting organisations, for example, by chairing the IALD committee that set up now very successful International Enlighten annual conference and participating in SLL committee work.
Why Did You Want To Be A Silhouette Awards Mentor?
As there is no credible straight education route to become a lighting designer, it is quite hard to start in a profession and develop without extensive extra input such a MSc and long training. The training is typically structured to a single company’s needs and requirements rather than lighting industry-wide accredited training that will get one ‘chartered’ status like in most consulting professions in building design and construction sectors.
I was lucky enough to have multidisciplinary training first and then a complimentary structured lighting consultant training. With offering my help as a Mentor, I would like to pass some of the relevant knowledge and support to my Mentee, which is perhaps
wider or different to what he/she/they are currently experiencing in their work or help someone from a very start, from the first principles. I found that, the most knowledge lighting designers that came to work in my team were lacking, was related to working as part of the project team, managing the projects whilst designing, going though the design and construction stages and being taken seriously by external project teams.
Lighting consultants are still Tier 2 consultants, not critical to the project, and I would like to bring the overall lighting industry experience to a higher level, to get closer to Tier 1 treatment by the clients and design teams.