Lighting for landscape goes beyond the visual aspects of outdoor architecture. Lighting highlights the most attractive and prominent features in your architectural structures. A good landscape artist will know exactly how to make them stand out. Whether residential or commercial, your outdoor environment should be visible, safe, comfortable, and aesthetically pleasing. This can be achieved using underrated light fixtures in the background.
Any good landscape designer can identify the most essential features in your outdoor architecture and create a homogenous lighting design to highlight those relevant features. Your outdoor landscaping should be symbiotic and symmetrical, blend in with your landscaping as part of the fixtures, and not a separate aspect of the design.
Uncommon Designers has created this guide about lighting for landscape techniques to explain how it is applied to landscape design. If you’re looking for something fun and interesting to apply to your next outdoor project, start by learning a little more about outdoor lights.
Why Invest in Landscape Lighting?
A good quality landscape lighting design can bring life to your garden or outdoor space. However, aside from aesthetic features, landscape lighting is much more than an illumination feature. A clever installation of your landscape lighting fixtures can be handy as a safety precaution. Lighting up the walkways, entrance ways, and paths prevents injuries by giving users a clear view of what’s ahead. They are also excellent theft deterrents, as it’s been proven that good lighting turns thieves away from homes and commercial buildings.
A professional quality landscape lighting project can also dramatically increase the value of your property, highlighting important fixtures and on-site structures. Aside from making the most beautiful parts of your outdoor space stand out, good backyard lighting and landscape lights make your time outside much more enjoyable. They expand your outdoor space and make it much warmer and more inviting.
Types and Techniques
Path Lighting
The best way to create seamless transitions between spaces and illuminate walkways is by using path lighting. This is the best way to prevent tripping hazards and make it easier for your eye to move through spaces in the dark. Using natural-looking light fixtures makes paths and walkways look harmonious and in tune with the environment around it.
Moon Lighting
This type of lighting gives the impression of moonlight shining down through the trees. It is more of an atmospheric lighting style. However, you can use it for practical purposes, such as bringing light to a dark area. You can create a luxurious, moon-like ambiance by installing soft lights high up in trees or other structures around your property.
Silhouetting
Using an uplight to illuminate an area behind an object will create a sense of shadow and contrast with the bright light shining on the wall. This technique is instrumental as it provides illumination to a building or wall but also highlights the object in front of it. It has an undoubtedly dramatic effect and functions well with objects with interesting shapes. It shows off an object’s architectural detail.
Shadowing
This type of lighting for landscape design technique creates visually interesting shadows on walls. It’s similar to silhouetting, but the shadows are created as backdrops against a wall behind it. This is particularly useful for breaking linear patterns and creating attractive visual focal points, like trees and fountains.
Wall Lighting
The technique name speaks for itself. Wall lighting illuminates retaining and freestanding walls and surrounding objects. They help delineate an outdoor area, and a carefully placed wall lighting fixture can make your space look bigger and more inviting for yourself and your guests.
Spot Lighting
As one of the most popular landscape lighting techniques, spot lighting is used to illuminate a specific object, like a fountain, flag, statue, or tree. Spotlights also draw dramatic attention to an object and recreate a day environment at night.
Hire a Landscape Artist
Hiring professionals is the most effective way to introduce light fixtures into your home landscaping. Incorporating any of the above techniques in your outdoor area or business is easy with Uncommon Designers. Our landscaping services are the perfect solution for your landscaping projects. If you’re in the Dallas, Texas, area, call us at (972) 371 9531, and we’ll get in touch with you as soon as possible.
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