I have just landed in Dubai to attend the 2024 edition of Light and Intelligent Building Middle East, which appropriately carries the theme Enlightened Futures. Over the years I have been many times to Dubai, but it is without doubt that specifically over the last 10 years Dubai and the whole Emirate in general, have moved things up a notch. The Burj Khalifa, the Dubai Mall, The Atlantis, Palm Island, the newly completed Museum of Future Dubai, are all typical exponents of Dubai making its mark as one of the world’s leading future cities. The tallest, the biggest, the largest, the most, the first, etc, are just some of the descriptions you can tag on these landmarks in Dubai. 

It brings along plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs, developers and the design fraternity, lighting designers included. But is it a good thing? While many of these projects maybe a visual light “feast”, one can wonder at what economic and environmental costs these are being realised. Yes, it surely brings in the tourist dollars and arguably stimulates the night economy, but are we better of with this at times cacophony of light shapes and colour? What are we doing? Does every building have to become a high pixelated tv screen with no consideration for the night sky or even architectural values?   

Yes I admit, I love nature and architecture, so when in today’s modern cities night illumination seems to totally overtake calm nature and beautiful architecture, we may need to stop, step back and think about what we are doing. Just because we can, does it mean we have to? As lighting designers, we have as much responsibility about lighting things up as to what not to light up! 

Dubai is an exciting city, as are Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris, New York, London or many others for that matter, but I feel we are reaching a point where we might need to rethink our approach to lighting. Perhaps todays LED technology is offering too many opportunities and as a result we are losing sight of basic “life” values? Am I the only one thinking this way?