Barry Hannaford Awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Lighting Industry’ by the Light Middle East Awards

We are delighted to share the news that Barry Hannaford’s achievements have been recognised by the Light Middle East Awards for his ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Lighting Industry’.

Barry Hannaford started his lighting design career 47 years ago with Thorn Lighting at a time when Thorn had a world class research facility and educational programme. This solid foundation in the science of light was then further enhanced and expanded with positions at the London Borough of Greenwich Lighting Department, Concord Lighting Ltd and ERCO where he was the UK Technical Manager.  During the first 15 years of Barry’s career working within industry, Barry’s passion for the medium of light evolved and using the science that he had learnt his creative flare developed.

Wanting to fully exploit light within the built environment to provide building owners with the very best solutions, he joined Lighting Design Partnership in 1985 and was instrumental in the development of lighting design as a profession. In fact todays lighting designers owe a lot to LDP’s promotion of the discipline through the 1980’s, in which Barry played a pivotal role.

Barry joined dpa lighting consultants in 1996 as a Partner and established the London office with great success.  The Middle East has always been important to dpa with projects such as The Sheraton on the Creek from 1977 and on the back of various commissions in the region and in particular the Grand Hyatt in Dubai, dpa decided to set up an office in Dubai in 2003. Barry moved there in 2004 and remains an owner and Director of the Practice today.

Barry has been involved with literally thousands of projects all over the world, there are so many worthy of note it is difficult to isolate a few without feeling others should have been mentioned, but a selection of Barry’s completed projects are:

• Her Majesty’s Queen Elizabeth II Private Library at Windsor Castle and the Queens House at Greenwich.
• Opus Sacrum, Royal Palace Warsaw, Poland which was an exhibition designed by Franco Zeffirelli exhibiting Barbara Piasecka Johnsons art collection which included art by many of the Great Masters.
• Opening night party for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Natural History Museum, as well as Lord Andrew Lloyd Webbers wedding reception and party and several of his residencies.
• Arcapita Bank Headquarters & East Park Mosque, Bahrain with SOM Architects.
• The National Assembly of Wales with Architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.
• New York University Abu Dhabi with Rafael Vinoly.
• A new project which will be seen in Abu Dhabi shortly is also on Barry’s list of his most important projects, unfortunately it can not be named today but I am sure in due course everyone will see it.

Barry’s extreme attention to detail and passion for understanding the science of light and using/sharing this knowledge creatively, is what makes him so special and so deserving of this award.