Landscape Lighting Guide – Types, Selection Criteria, And Rules

Do you want to improve lighting outside your home? If you are looking for landscape lighting ideas, we have an inspirational guide from the Done Right team!

Landscape lighting complements the general outdoor lighting and emphasizes the beauty of the urban area (parks, squares, etc.) or apartment buildings’ courtyards. For such light, it is essential to correctly distribute the luminous flux, for which a tiered system of several groups of lamps is created. It is reflected in the outdoor landscape lighting project, which is formed simultaneously with the landscape design. This is necessary to emphasize the advantages of the yard and hide flaws, highlight common and private areas. And to do this, you must know various types of landscape lighting available.

Types of Landscape Lighting

Landscape lighting includes several types of lighting:

• Security lighting: creating the effect of presence, video surveillance;
• Functional lighting: everyday lighting of paths, walkways, steps;
• Architectural lighting: illumination of buildings, facades, columns;
• Decorative lighting:the play of light and shadow;
• Festive lighting: elegant lighting of facades, trees.

Now let’s look at each view separately:

1. Security lighting

Security lighting is used to illuminate the perimeter of the site and those places that must be under video surveillance. Working from twilight photosensors or time relays, security lighting creates the effect of people’s presence on the site. The autonomous mode does not imply constant attention from the owner of the house.

2. Functional lighting

Functional lighting is about safety and durability, as well as ease of use and maintenance. For example, the road surface should be bright enough to make it easy and pleasant to move on. It is important to avoid the annoying effect of blinding— luminaires with the impact of a reflected light help to combat this problem today. The correctly chosen design of luminaires should not violate the compositional solution as a whole. Seasonal factors must also be considered. Since functional lighting devices are also used in winter, they must be located above the snow cover and be installed with a sufficient level of protection.

3. Architectural lighting

The most straightforward technique in architectural lighting is the general floodlighting technique, in which the night image of the object is most similar to the daytime one. A more complex approach is highlighting light accents, creating a light pattern on the planes of your house’s walls, emphasizing the original ideas of the architect.

4. Decorative lighting

It implies the play of light and shadow in those beautiful corners created for a pleasant stay. However, the critical point here is the correct selection of equipment and light according to spectral characteristics (light can be warm and cold). For example, blue and ordinary spruce look amazing in the rays of cold light, but thuja will sparkle in a special way in the rays of warm light.

5. Festive lighting

Festive lighting includes elegant illumination of facades, trees, and various elements of your site when holding holidays or celebrations. Such lighting will help create a unique holiday atmosphere and will make an indelible impression on your guests.

Selection of landscape lighting elements

To create a unique style of landscape illumination, you can use various types of equipment, among which the ones worth highlighting are:

• Spherical lighting elements. As a rule, they are produced with a spherical shade, which allows the beams to be evenly distributed in all directions.
• Reflected light lamps. These are products used to create soft, glare-free illumination—ideal for decorating paths, trees, ponds.
• Bollards. Bollards come in various variations with lattice shades, which serve to direct the light flux downward. The height of the products can be from 20 to 150 cm, while they are made in various styles.
• Recessed luminaires. Recessed luminaires are mounted on the floor, platforms, ground, wall, and other surfaces. As a rule, such lamps are used for accent illumination, so they are not too bright.
• Devices with road light distribution. This equipment is intended not so much for lighting landscape compositions but for highlighting areas of increased activity.

Before selecting your landscape lighting equipment, know that each device carries its own functionality and allows you to vary the luminous flux distribution.

Important! The creation of landscape lighting can occur both in a high-voltage circuit and a low-voltage one. It depends on the operating conditions and the intended use of the instruments. However, it is worth considering that when connected at low voltage, it becomes possible to quickly replace lamps without the involvement of specialists, which will be a more profitable option for the homeowner.

Organization rules

Landscape lighting is ideal for decorating functional garden objects, buildings, and houses.

Like any lighting complex, the landscape illumination system should be organized, taking into account electrical safety rules. For this reason, it is necessary to select local areas where it is planned to install devices of a specific type, even at the stage of project creation. It is essential to take into account the total power consumption of the equipment used in the system and the type of lamps, their technical characteristics, the type of light flux diffusion, power sources, etc.

The rest of the rules for organizing landscape lighting include the following aspects:

• General lighting should be organized through the intersection of ray fluxes.
• When choosing lighting fixtures for a garden, it is necessary to consider the level of dust and moisture protection – the so-called IP indicator. It consists of two numbers, the increasing order of which indicates the greater efficiency of the product.
• A critical factor that homeowners in most regions of our country must not overlook is the degree of soil freezing. For the equipment to work efficiently, concrete support for the posts should be made so that the instruments do not squint.
• To illuminate paths, it is better to prefer lamps with a directed beam of light because they focus on the desired object without blinding the person.
• Consider several illumination compositions that will be independent of each other. It is recommended that the lights for plants, arbours, and paths can be switched on separately.

I am Olivia Ava. I have 3+ years of experience in professional blogging. As a blogger usually writes about different category related to the field like Health, Travel, Technology, Automobile, and other categories