Design integrity

There was an extraordinary story in the news this week where Spanish firm Santa & Cole accuse Qatar of ‘the biggest case of public counterfeiting in the history of design’. The story goes like this: Santa and Cole designed and produced the beautiful and elegant Latina street lights which are used in Barcelona. In Qatar, a 10km section of road has been lit with fixtures which have more than a passing resemblance to the Latina. Apparently, the fixtures were produced by a public authority of the State of Qatar and installed at Al Waab Street in Doha. We are talking 960 poles in total.

Al Waab Street, Doha

This is wrong on many levels. Firstly, the authorship of the design rests with Santa and Cole and it is beyond poor manners to take their design, without consent (I’d be amazed if they even asked) and then proceed full steam ahead into production and installation. That this has come from a public authority sends a negative message to the world and contradicts Qatar’s push to be seen as a modern and progressive country.  Not just poor manners, I would suspect illegal too.

Then also spare a thought for the Santa and Cole  employees. Spain has been doing it tough in recent times along with many other European countries. If the order for 960 poles had gone to Santa and Cole then that would have gone a long way towards job security for their workers, simple as that. They must be furious and rightly so.

So what can we do?

Firstly, I would suggest that the design community unite in support of Santa and Cole and encourage them in their legal action against Qatar.

Secondly, this is a timely reminder about design integrity. We design lighting with an impartial view about what product is right for the project and how we can stretch the client’s budget as far as possible while still achieving a sustainable, cost effective scheme. This well considered design is often compromised by electrical contractors offering inferior ‘alternatives’ to specified fixtures to yield marginal cost savings for clients while significantly improving their bottom line. And what suffers as a result? Yep, you guessed it, the lighting design.

Santa & Cole’s original Latina fixture