The Landscape Lighting Book

Janet Lennox Moyer

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118415931
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Aménagement urbain et paysager

This richly illustrated, up-to-date guide offers practical coverage of all aspects of lighting design. Written by an award-winning, internationally known lighting designer, it covers lighting practices, materials, and their design applications and offers guidelines for preparing lighting drawings, control and transfer charts, symbol lists, and other technical specifications. This edition provides a new focus on the use of LEDs, as well as new and expanded coverage of renderings, Mesopic Vision, and the latest controls approaches and systems.

I

PROJECT

DEVELOPMENT

1

Assessing Project Needs

Walking the site with the Landscape Architectural team from Rees Roberts in NYC, we started identifying the scope and the direction for the landscape lighting. Photograph: George Gruel.

As with all architectural design processes, lighting design is based on creativity and responding to project needs. The development of a responsive design concept results from collecting information about the project. Some information will be gained during the initial interview for the job, but the bulk of it is gathered once a contract has been signed and the project has begun. This chapter addresses the information-gathering stage of the project, which includes:

• Interviewing the client(s) and other design team members to establish the scope and design direction of the project
• Reviewing the plans to gain an understanding of the landscape design concepts
• Visiting the site to gain a visual understanding of the project
• Synthesizing the information to create a base from which design ideas will develop

INTERVIEWING CLIENTS AND THE DESIGN TEAM

Interviews present an opportunity to start collecting valuable information about the project and develop a working communication channel between members of the design team. The lighting designer can learn how various team members feel about light and their desires for the lighting approach or its effects on the project. Interviewing other consultants, such as the irrigation or soils engineers, provides the link to valuable technical information.

Clients

Many clients have limited understanding of the design process involved in lighting or what can be done with light to create an atmosphere. They often have preferences about the atmosphere, but no idea how to achieve it. Interviewing the client or end user builds the foundation for successful landscape lighting. The interview can open a strong communication channel between client and designer, which will help throughout the project. It can develop a trust between the client and the designer that encourages the client to rely on the designer for guidance throughout all phases of the project.

In interviewing clients, ask questions that allow clients to provide information regarding their design needs and desires. Then, listen carefully to the information they provide. Discuss the client’s personal feelings about light, the anticipated use(s) of the landscape at night, the anticipated maintenance of both the garden and the lighting, budget constraints, and deadlines. Break the discussion into three distinct categories: information retrieval, information dissemination, and client commitment.1 During each area of discussion, ask questions to retrieve needed information, then provide the client with choices or guidance, and finalize the discussion with an understanding between client and designer.

Consider showing a portfolio. This presents the designer’s experience and introduces lighting ideas to a client. The designer can lead the client through past projects, discussing how the lighting effects and techniques shown in the photographs relate to this project. It provides a time for client feedback and discussion of their lighting goals. This is the time for the designer to show strengths that relate to this client’s project. The strengths can be creativity, technical knowledge, construction experience, or simply a history of quick project completion.

Offer to take the client and other design team members on a tour of local projects. This experience clearly shows clients what lighting can do for a landscape and showcases the designer’s skills and abilities. These visits often stimulate clients’ thinking about lighting, triggering new feelings or ideas about lighting their property.

Clients’ Expectations

Ask clients their feelings about light and their expectations of lighting in their landscape. People want landscape lighting for various reasons: view out from inside a room, use of the space for one or more activities, identification of the property, safety of people in the landscape, and security of people and property on the site or inside buildings. They often do not even have a clear idea of what they want. The designer must have a clear idea of the client’s expectations before embarking on a design concept. When interviewing a client, be sure to cover the following points:

• Understand the client’s basic likes and dislikes about landscape lighting. Some clients want to see beautiful fixtures; others may want fixtures totally hidden. The client may want a dramatic scene with high contrast (see Figures 1.1 & 1.2) and limited areas lit, or the client may be sensitive to glare and prefer less contrast (see Figure 3.12).
• Determine what the client dislikes about the existing lighting (or other landscape lighting that the client has seen). Ask about lighting the client has seen and likes, including specifically what attracted the client’s attention to that lighting. It may be a neighbor’s lighting or something the client saw in a magazine. Understand the client’s light level requirements. What does the client mean by “a little” or “soft” lighting? How much light is “a lot” of light?
• Discuss what impelled the client to install landscape lighting. This will give the designer information about the client’s perspective on landscape lighting. Often, a specific event or issue sparked the client’s interest. It may be safety, the need to see the way from a door to a parking garage, or a desire to see the landscape at night.
• Talk about the atmosphere or appearance the client would like to create. Encourage the client to use adjectives to describe the scene. Words such as “dramatic” and “theatrical” present a different image than “simple” and “subtle.”
• Inquire about the impression the client would like visitors to experience. Answers will vary from drawing attention to the site to impressing visitors to welcoming guests.

Next, discuss space use issues. Often clients will not know how they will use their outdoor spaces once they have lighting. Ask specific questions about the kind of entertaining or daily/family use the client might envision. Ask about the type, size, and frequency of events the client might want to plan. This starts to define a client’s goals for the project.

• Discuss what activities will take place in the landscape after dark. In many areas, there may not be any activities outside at night (due to climate) during certain times of the year.
• Consider activities that occur inside buildings and the importance of view out to the landscape.
• Determine specific lighting needs or expectations. When several needs surface, this may indicate that flexibility will be required in the lighting system controls.
• Explore safety and security issues.
• Discuss who will be using the space(s). Older people or people with any visual disabilities have special lighting needs that must be considered in planning the lighting.

Maintenance

Two kinds of maintenance issues should be discussed: landscape maintenance and lighting maintenance.

Landscape Maintenance

Consider changes that could occur to the landscape over time—decks, pathways, patios, structures, or sculptures that may be modified, added, moved, or removed.

• Inquire who provides normal maintenance.
• Ask what services are included in normal maintenance.
• Ask about the maintenance schedule.
• Discuss whether the basic planting design will develop further over time.
• Determine if seasonal planting occurs in certain areas. This may mean not installing lighting fixtures in that planting area. Working around fixtures while maintaining the planting can be cumbersome and fixtures can be knocked out of adjustment.
• Ask who makes the planting decisions. This decision maker might be the landscape architect or designer together with the owner or the head gardener. This person(s) should be included in the discussion of the lighting design and briefed on the required maintenance of the lighting.
• Inquire about fertilization, including both schedule and materials used. Due to corrosion implications, this fertilizer information may affect the lighting equipment selection.
• Ask about plant pruning. Hedges may be cut to keep at a certain size – or may be planned to keep to a certain size as they grow. Specimens may be shaped or groomed for various reasons including allowing good air movement through branches, keeping or creating a specific shape or form. This may affect a designer’s approach to the lighting concept.

All these issues indicate how careful the designer will need to be in the selection and placement of fixtures. Unless the owner maintains the grounds, few people working at the site understand the necessity of not moving the fixtures and coordinating the maintenance of the landscape with the lighting to preserve the lighting effects.

Lighting Maintenance

Prompt the client to think about the future. Successful lighting depends on long-term functionality of the system. This requires proper maintenance and the ability of the lighting system to grow and chang...