Frederika Whitehead visits Roeselare, Belgium’s city of light, to meet Modular lighting designer Wim Geilen

10am
For such a well-known name Modular has surprising few employees, especially considering its 37m sales figures – just 125 on the payroll. The HQ in Roeselare is large and sparsely populated. Impeccably dressed R&D staff slip past quietly in the wide white corridors shod in Lanvin trainers and sporting Prada sunglasses.

Designed by one of Belgium’s most sought-after architectural firms, Coussée & Goris, the HQ is exquisite with many striking architectural features, some more surprising than others. The image of a naked man crawling towards me on all fours in the toilet, for instance, came as a bit of a shock. I exited the toilet slightly stunned and ran into marketing manager Tom Samyn: “Have you seen what’s in the mens?” he asks. Funnily I hadn’t, so he duly led me in to the men’s loos to see a large display of naked ladies clutching lighting instruments. Public nudity per se doesn’t really bother me but I struggle to imagine an office in the UK choosing a similar design feature.

Next to the sexy loos, opposite the entrance is a 240sq m bar-cum-nightclub space where Modular hosts parties for the local architectural talent. “Everybody knows that most business is done in the bar,” Samyn confides. “We refurbish this once every three years – it’s due for redesign now. It’s not our showroom but it is an opportunity to show off our trend-setting capabilities.” Doors from the bar lead either onto the huge factory floor, or upstairs to the showroom. When we reach the showroom I understand Samyn’s insistence that the bar and the showroom are different. The showroom is bona fide bonkers. It’s a very large space, painted black and set with a sci-fi tableaux. Samyn tells the story: “We imagined the year 2057. Light has become a self-sustaining creature. Evil floating light beams exist with genetic DNA and they are trying to blind the world”. The centrepiece is a battlescene; the Modular lighting squad fight the light beams and finally overcome them with a genetic weapon that transforms the evil beams into friendly lights. Later I read the full story in the company magazine, it ends: “Eventually the light beams all ask if they can be integrated into Modular lighting fixtures.”

Dotted around the battleground clusters of Modular lights are displayed in groups for study. Samyn gives me the quasi-museum tour: “What you see here is a product family that we launched in the late 90s, you can see the rounded, organic shapes … on your right here you see one of the first LED designs … in this display we have Square Moon from 1996, at that time the trend was to conceal the light source, we decided to make the light source a feature, to show the beam again. It went on to become one of our best selling products.”

Wim Geilen spent the morning talking pricing, I was unable to sit in but I asked him how it went: “we talked pricing politics, we have recently reorganised the factory, particularly the profiles part, we have bought a new, more efficient, milling machine that will create room for a discount.” I asked him to what extent this was due to the downturn. He is candid about the situation many of his customers face. Modular’s Spanish distributor has had to reduce his staff from 77 two years ago to 16 now. The number of new projects in the UK, Italy and Eastern Europe has also fallen substantially. Investing in new equipment is Modular’s way of helping to keep the lights on.

12pm
Lunchtime. We head off by car to a neighbouring village to meet interior designer Gerd Couckhuyt for bouillabaise and a bottle of wine. Couckhuyt is one of the few outside designers that Modular uses. His history with them is long – for years he used their lights in his interiors and eventually the relationship was such that he was able to suggest his own designs.

2pm
We go to inspect an office interior designed by Couckhuyt that has just been finished. The paint is still fresh and the staff are still clearing up after the launch party. The Izar lights look great and the owners are clearly pleased with the result. Geilen and I get into discussion about lux requirements. He tells me that EU stipulates 500 lux minimum for desk lighting. What interests him is how to get 500 lux out of a light while putting the minimum of energy in. “We have spent a lot of time optimising our profile lights so that they have almost 100% output, this is amazingly high compared to other products. Light fittings themselves absorb energy, some have an output as low as 30%. We increased the output by changing height of the lamp in the profile and changing the shape of the reflectors.”

3pm
Geilen and Couckhuyt are discussing the variability of the Izar light. Couckhuyt shows Geilen some photos he has had taken of the light used in a complex installation in a nightclub. The owner has painted the walls white and rigged it up the Izar to bath them in colour. They spent the next couple of hours dismantling and reassembling the prototype rigging it up with dimmers and filters, testing it as a wall light, a table light, and so on, and deciding which options to put in the catalogue.

Downstairs in the lobby there is a trophy cabinet, on proud display amongst them is a copy of Playboy magazine, wedged open at the page where the Izar light is named sexiest product of the year – clearly it’s a treasured accolade.

5pm
No drinks in the lighting lounge for me today, I have a Eurostar to catch. I leave Geilen and Couckhuyt deep in concentration, still crouched on the carpeted floor of the meeting room dismantling and reassembling. The logic of having a bar in the office to stimulate and replenish these long discussions and capitalise on any breakthroughs was never more apparent.

Wim Geilen is the Research and Development manager at Modular.
www.supermodular.com

Lighting Lingo

Accent – draws attention to a particular area; maybe a company logo, an artwork, or an attractive feature of the architecture.
Track – individual lights that can be twisted and turned on the track that holds them to light different parts of the room, particularly useful in situations with changing displays such as shops and museums.
Recessed – pioneered by Modular, these went on to become the industry standard. Multiple individual lights are fitted into a recessed box.
Location ­– dim lights for lighting a route. Sometimes referred to as ‘Wayfinder’
Wallwashing – illuminating the wall evenly, this flattens texture and hides imperfections in a wall. It’s not good for brick or stone walls because it doesn’t bring out the best in them (their texture), or for shiny walls because it makes them glare.
Wall grazing – lights are set very close to the wall dramatically reveal its texture. This is very good for brick or stone or other interesting surfaces. It can be used for shiny surfaces and mosaics but the effect will be difficult to predict.