Outdoor lighting in our gardens began with the very first project, and continually evolves, enhancing our landscaping design schemes . While ergonomic practicalities such as illuminating level changes, paths and seating zones form essential lighting techniques, we accentuate the focal points and bespoke elements specifically designed for each site to create dynamic and highly individualised outdoor spaces. Lighting infrastructure is a pivotal factor to consider at a project's outset, and when installed effectively will certainly minimise subsequent glitches. ——————————— P rospectively, not much technical prowess is in fact required, except the nifty concealment of cabling, installing a residual-current device and providing sufficient power in the transformers to reduce mains voltage to a safe 12 volt. Whichever the outdoor setting, we should always bear in mind its night-time theatricality, since a resplendent, innovative garden design entails elegant footlights, not graceless floodlights, to produce a consummate, shimmering mise en scene!

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1 water

An outdoor space is distinctly amplified when light travels through water, where the slightest ripple projects remarkable shadows onto surfaces above. While underwater cross lighting is enclosed within a pool or pond, uplighting can reach the top of a soaring elevation by implementing angle precision, where spotlights are positioned focally to magnify spatial amplitude. Lighting upwards via water produces captivating outlines, highlighting the textures of a unique waterfall design, within an invigorating spectrum of ripples and rhythms.

2 features

Many of our clients enjoy their gardens primarily in the evening, when illuminating the outdoor space extends its use, and enhances focal points with up and down lighting. Architectural plants produce pivotal structural forms such as in multi-stemmed trees and shrubs, letting copious light into their canopies and increasing spatial depth, where picturesque contours are highly conducive to expressive moon lighting and uplighting techniques. Similarly, planters, water features, swimming pools and modern sculpture are enhanced with immersive outdoor lighting, across our contemporary landscape gardens.

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3 controls

Old-fashioned switches are long gone, replaced by remote controls which integrate outdoor lighting into Lutron indoor keypads. These systems are often operated wirelessly, enhancing flexibility, although apparatus malfunctions occasionally, when any glitch in the computer software or wi-fi signal dispatches a lightless outdoors. We prefer a separate system situated in the garden, which enhances safety and practicality, easily isolated if need be. Remote key fobs are efficient in modifying a garden's lighting ambience, while smart energy fobs utilise rechargeable sensors; managed via thermal heat produced by our fingers, an outdoor lightscape is revitalised through the owners' infinite conductive dynamism – a sustainable garden design luxury!

4 direction

Directional lighting generates definitive rhythmic patterns across paths, walls and elevations, where the apt spacing of fittings, beam angles and lamp wattages articulates our outline plan. Strip lighting methods are effective in delineating minimalist architectural layouts by utilising LED technology – sleekly highlighting a pioneering design approach synonymous with our Central London roof garden projects. The capital's city rooftop vistas often entail dramatic light scenes on a par with their backdrop, where aerial nightscapes energise outdoor spaces fluidly when embraced both sensitively and architecturally.

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elegance

5 elegance

We utilise low-voltage lighting in all of our garden and roof terrace landscape designs, producing subtle, efficient and safe architectural extensions at dusk. The lamps we specify are usually 20 or 35 watt, with 50 watt for medium-sized objects. When lighting large trees and significant bodies of water, bigger lamps are required. By subdividing independent zones, and utilising suitable wattage while proficiently concealing the fittings, we achieve detail design refinement with a mellow outdoor ambience.

6 cavities

Architectural cavities provide potential to expand spatial depth when discreetly lit within, where we achieve optimal outdoor ambience by integrating effortless techniques. We devise further apertures in our roof terrace designs, as well as in patio ideas for small back gardens, utilising various methods to conceal an LED tape, or recess a slim spotlight to produce definitive dusk atmosphere. Selecting suitable luminaire colour generates warm or cool spectra of white, yellow, orange, red or blue hues, which purposefully conveys beam clarity.

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7 silhouettes

Even a small, low-lying architectural plant is capable of producing large scale, when a light fitting positioned through its foliage projects an amplified silhouette onto the backdrop. While branches and leaves gradually develop solidity, less light reaches its intended destination, ergo we often thin out dense outlines and increase lamp wattages to redefine scale and restore balance. By exploring silhouetted outdoor space at dusk, we portray and extend the intriguing aspects of refined planting designs, where subtleness and exuberance intermesh rather reciprocally across zoned canvases of illuminated greeneries.

8 atmosphere

The contrast between enigmatic voids and luminous objects defines daylight atmosphere in a landscape design, heightened with artificial light during night-time which conveys a pivotal sense of fluidity in every project throughout our garden design portfolio. We create an extended twilight garden setting by concealing or accentuating key focal elements, portrayed via the beams' strength and angles. When textured surfaces form intriguing, detailed nuances, low-level cross lighting draws focus below eye level. Voluminous tree canopies and tropical garden foliage are ideal for generating renewed ambience, and by utilising moon and down lighting, we redefine outdoor night-time atmosphere, as well as extend sought-after functionality.

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9 concealment

One of the most intriguing attributes of inspiring outdoor lighting design is the illusion of space, since we feel distinctly connected when enjoying a lit object while its light source is concealed. Low-voltage fitting sizes are designed increasingly smaller, in a neutral colour palette. We prefer natural hues to metallic finishes, unless specified for overhead illumination, as earth tones are effortlessly camouflaged within borders, decking designs and trees. We diffuse surplus brightness by utilising glare guards, efficient beam angles and suitable system wattage to amplify small city gardens.

10 upkeep

Outdoor lighting forms a low upkeep, trouble-free element, when the design process is adequately thought-out and implemented. Efficiency in routing wired apparatus is vital at the design stage, as a common mishap occurs when wires are dissevered by hard landscaping tools during construction, or by gardening equipment through maintenance. While low-voltage cables are easy and safe to repair at 12 volt, lamps usually fade within a couple of years, when replacement is essential to sustain vibrant displays. Likewise, the reflector, lens and flange benefit from periodical cleaning to maintain effective illumination.

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