European Lighting Designers' Association

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The European Lighting Designers' Association (ELDA+) is an international association of lighting designers whose work primarily involves them in architectural lighting design. Based in Gütersloh, Germany, the organisation was originally created as a European entity, a counterpart to the North American International Association of Lighting Designers. However, since its founding in 1994, the organisation has expanded beyond the boundaries of Europe and has many members outside of Europe in Asia and North America.

1 Literature
2 Member formation
3 Workshops
4 Council
5 External links

[edit] Literature

Beyond a bi-monthly newsletter, ELDA's only official literature is its website - the official magazine of the organisation is Professional Lighting Design, in which the newsletter is printed, and every member has a subscription to the magazine. VIA-Verlag, the publisher of the magazine, retains very close ties with both ELDA+ and the IALD. ELDA+ shares its head office with VIA-Verlag.

[edit] Member formation

The membership structure of ELDA+ is intended to encompass lighting designers of all levels, and membership fees are organised accordingly. Student members form by far the greatest majority of members. Design members are qualified lighting designers whose work largely focusses on architectural lighting design. Commercial affiliates are similar to design members, but are considered to have a vested commercial interest. The category of professional is reserved for respected independent lighting designers whose work solely involves lighting in architecture. The final category, that of fellow is largely reserved for past presidents of ELDA+, although Director General Alison Ritter and treasurer Joachim Ritter also hold this title.

ELDA+ holds close ties with various universities in Germany holding diplomas relating to architectural lighting design, including the Hochschule Wismar, University of Technology, Business and Design and the Hildesheim University of Applied Sciences - a considerable number of the students of these courses and a number of the lecturers are members of ELDA+.

Indeed, the number of students from Wismar and Hildesheim mean that a sizeable portion of the members appear to come from Germany, although many of these are in fact from outside of Germany and study in the country.

Professional and Fellow Members of the association are given permission to append the suffix "ELDA+" to their name.

[edit] Workshops

ELDA+ hosts a number of "workshops", in which various lighting projects are carried out in areas of a selected town or city. All of these have to date been carried out within Europe, with the town of Alingsås, Sweden the most regular partner. Others have been carried out in Jyväskylä in Finland, Winterthur in Switzerland. In January 2006 one is planned for Birmingham, UK and in September 2005 one for Lüdenscheid, Germany.