LDP lights on new Sydney base

Lighting Design Partnership is setting up an office in Sydney to service its Australasian and Pacific Rim projects.

Tim Downey, who was LDP’s senior designer on Brisbane International Airport, is heading the new outfit.

“The successful completion of Brisbane Airport [last September] catapulted us on to the Australian scene in a big way,” he says.

“But we also see the Pacific Rim as a potential boom market, and logistically it will be much easier for us to service those needs from a base in Sydney.”

LDP managing director Professor Andre Tammes will liaise regularly between Sydney and the group’s two offices in the UK.

Design work for local projects will be carried out in Sydney. LDP is already doing initial work for the Sydney Olympics and has been commissioned to prepare a lighting strategy report for the city.

“We will try to recruit locally, but it depends on the calibre of staff we require,” says LDP co-director Douglas Brennan.

Meanwhile, LDP has also set up a formal collaborative relationship with a Korean lighting design consultancy.

Tammes adds: “In the period of post-recession recovery, we don’t see ourselves servicing our global projects from one large London office. We’d rather see ourselves expanding via strategically chosen partnerships and satellite offices around the world.”