Outdoor Lighting | LANDSCAPE LIGHTING DESIGN

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Create Your Landscape Lighting Design
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The benefits of landscaping lighting is it helps extend your lighting to the yard and lets you enjoy the outside for as long as you want. Landscape lighting also provides exterior home security, comfort, and visual aid for your back and front yard.

Where do I even start when it comes to landscape lighting?

Usually accent and task lighting are great techniques to start with when choosing fixtures for your yard. You want to select fixtures that allow you to move around safely and provide an efficient light source that allows you to do what you have to outside the home. Try not to choose bulbs that glare too intensely and stay away from fixtures that will create light pollution. Light pollution creates unwanted glares for your neighbors, during your outdoor experience, and into the sky. A good start for your landscape lighting design are with low-voltage systems. These type of lighting fixtures are extremely versatile in use and help prevent light pollution. A successful lighting design for your landscape should be functional and aesthetically pleasing at anytime of the day and night.

Some of the outdoor lighting trends “...are light fixtures being designed with a 45 percent cutoff and that direct the light down are functional as well as decorative,”
- Dennis Arnold, product development manager, Thomas Lighting.

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A well-lit landscape design helps create beauty, safety and convenience before entering your home.

Nature is your guide: Try to create a generic source of illumination for your exterior lighting design. An effective type of illumination should feel natural and less artificial. Research lamps/bulbs types to help accomplish a comfortable and a functional lighting design.
Lighting Layer Concept: It is just as important to re-work the lighting layers concept into your lighting scheme for your outdoor experience. Plan for lighting if you have to look from the outside into your home and a lighting scheme that will fit the needs for an outdoor space that is a distance away from your house.
Have a Plan: A great lighting design for the outside of your home should meet your outdoor space needs. Ask yourself questions like: Do I want to feature the architectural elements of my home? Is the patio only going to be used for an eating area? How do I want to light my pathway so that it highlights certain features? Keep in mind that in today’s lighting industry you are able to accomplish more for your outdoor experience.

LANDSCAPE LIGHTING TECHNIQUES

SPOT LIGHTING

Landscape Lighting Design Techniques | Silhouetting

SILHOUETTE LIGHTING

SHADOWING

Spot Lighting
Spot Lighting is a focused beam of light that can be used to illuminate interesting features, architectural details and statuary. When it’s possible, positioning the spotlight so that its overhead minimizes glare and tends to supply a direct light bath to the subject.

Silhouetting
Silhouetting is a lighting technique to highlight vegetation and interesting shaped objects outside of your home. Placing a fixture directly behind the subject and pointing it vertically on a surface displays a dark outline of the subject to the foreground observer. This light source will accent the shape of an object, it’s not a lighting technique that will highlight color or texture. Remember to not use this technique near windows or too close to your neighbors, you goal is to washout the background and have the object in the foreground create a focal point.

Shadowing
Opposite of creating silhouettes is creating shadows. Use interesting shaped objects or vegetation, place the fixture directly in the front of the subject and aim the light through it so that it casts a shadow on the surface vertically. To enlarge a shadow on a subject, position the fixture closer to the subject so that the shadow is created larger on the surface. This technique can also be used to add security lighting to your home or business. If you are looking for the most detailed shadowing affect, flat surfaces or wall with no texture work best.

SIGN LIGHTING

MOON LIGHTING

UP LIGHTING

Sign Lighting
Flood lighting works best to light up signs after dark. It’s important to select optics that will complement the orientation of your signage: If the signage is horizontal and wide, try using a horizontal shaped flood light so that the beam illuminates at its best. While vertical optics on a flood light will better illuminate tall objects.

Moon Lighting
Concealing a fixture in a tree and aiming it downward creates the tranquil effect of light filtering through the branches on a moonlit night. Moon lighting fixtures should be hidden and positioned as high as possible. For a complementary effect, a luminaire may be installed on the ground and pointed upward to illuminate the tree itself.

Up Lighting
Up Lighting is a technique used to highlight the beauty of trees and architectural detailing. Illuminating repeating patterns, windows, archways and flowering trees will bring attention to these features after dark.

WALKWAY LIGHTING

PATH & SPREAD LIGHTING

FOUNTAIN LIGHTING

Walkway Lighting
By alternating the lights on different sides of the path is a nice alternative to the standard uniform path lighting set-up. Path lights should be spaced about 5-8 feet apart depending on the light output. Properly spacing out path lights will allow you to create a more efficient usage of your fixtures and create a safer route from point A to point B.

Path and Spread Lighting
The technique of low-level and evenly dispersed illumination will work best for flowers, shrubs and other types of ground cover. Fully shielded fixtures (path lights) work best to reduce glare. However partially shielded fixtures may be positioned in deeper foliage landscapes where the additional light will serve to backlight greenery. Spread lighting is a technique that may also be used underwater to illuminate an ornamental pond.

Fountain Lighting
Underwater illumination amplifies the dramatic effect of fountains, adding visual warmth and interest to parks, town squares and shopping centers. To use the water as a mirror, light the area behind the reflecting surface. Also, add colored lenses for dramatic effect.

POND LIGHTING

GRAZING

DOWN LIGHTING

Pond Lighting
Unlock the natural beauty of a pond or water garden after sundown by highlighting with underwater fixtures. In addition to extending the charm of the feature after dark, pond lighting gives you the option of using color lenses for the different atmospheric effects.

Grazing
Grazing is an ideal lighting approach to bring out the textured beauty of stone or brick surfaced walls, privacy fences, chimneys, and other interesting masonary. By achieving this technique its best to position a luminaire within six to eight inches of a façade and aiming it 90 degrees vertically. The illumination will graze the surface displaying the details on the wall nicely.

Down Lighting
Down lighting is a common technique used to supply light to a wide area from high above. Mounting lights high in trees will help broadcast a large source of light over a wide area down below. This type of installation creates general ambient light for backyard entertaining and also illuminates for safety and security. Down lighting fixtures can also be installed under eaves of a structure to highlight architectural detail.

STEP LIGHTING

DECK LIGHTING

SECURITY LIGHTING

Step Lighting
Using light to accent steps pays dividends in beauty and safety, allowing visitors to navigate with ease. Fixtures can be recessed into steps risers, underneath railings, and as surface lights on vertical posts.

Deck Lighting
Deck Lighting is another way to enhance safety and accent design. Spotlight changes in elevation, deck edges, and drop-offs. Fixtures can be concealed beneath benches, underneath railings, and as a surface lights on vertical posts.

Security Lighting
Eliminating dark areas where intruders can hide is an effective crime deterrent. Security lighting can be created without harsh glare by installing low-level lighting or accent lighting in and around the landscape of a home or business. The right combination will improve both appearance and security.