Far Niente by Janet Lennox Moyer Lighting the gardens at Far Niente Winery was a dream for owner Gil Nickel. Along with Landscape Architect Jonathan Plant, he had spent years cultivating the landscape and gardens. Now, he wanted to enjoy it and share it with guests at night. Our lighting design approach was an understated sculpting of the gardens. Movement throughout the multiple acre site required careful attention to vistas and providing a sense of lighting continuity while maintaining the essence of night. Along the roadways, subtle downlighting provided strolling light and views into the woodland gardens. A few specimen trees were selected for uplight accenting which increased the three dimensional qualities of the scene, and provided a visual rhythm and destination. Far Niente has two outdoor entertaining areas-- the Chardonnay Garden and the Cabernet Terrace. Both require a short walk from arrival areas, parking areas, and from the Main Winery building and caves. Each area required comfortable lighting providing for visual tasks (selecting scrumptious food and wonderful wine, for example), safe traffic flow within and between areas, and views connecting one area to another. During the project, the design team realized that Record Documents represented the only hope for ensuring the functional life of the lighting system. Plant worked the lighting designers Jan Moyer and Michael Hooker of MSH Visual Planners to determine that clear, concise and thorough documentation and maintenance information would provide the vehicle for maintaining the lighting effects. Then, the owner and maintenance personnel needed to buy into the importance of the maintenance. Record documents would be key, and what made up those record documents was the lesson here. Paul Schreer provided the design team with field support and produced the necessary record documents. The content and organization of the record documents needs to provide the maintenance and repair personnel with an understanding of the system, and their importance in the continuing functioning of the system. They and the owner need information from four general categories to clearly understand how to maintain a lighting system. To begin, drawings consisting of lighting layout information show the final locations of fixtures and associated equipment. This must include the exact lamp installed, and either an arrow or a brief description of what the fixture is aiming toward. Using a reproducible format provides for easy updating of these documents as changes occur over the life of the lighting system. The design team should further note all accessories such as lenses or gels, and which fixtures are controlled together with accurate cross-referencing to all schedules. The construction team should provide all remote ballast and/or low-voltage transformer locations. Photographs provide the only way to keep track of tree mounted fixtures. More than one photograph may be required to visually establish the specific tree and the specific fixture location(s) within that tree. It helps to have a numbering system or other identification system for each tree which allows the tree to be identified on the photographs and quickly referenced on all plans and schedules. Notations on the photographs should include all the information needed to find and maintain fixtures. For example, a typical photograph will note the tree identification, where the photographer stood, and an explanation of where he was looking. (For example, "Tree #21, facing north towards the guest house and looking straight up.") Notations should also include the lamping, aiming and accessories used. Instructions supply all the maintenance information the client needs to keep the lighting functioning properly. It includes a list of instructions from the designer; a list of supplies required to maintain the system; a list of suppliers from whom replacement parts can be procured; and all the installation and maintenance brochures provided by the equipment manufacturers. The designer's instruction list includes a description of all the maintenance tasks that will need to be done during the life of the lighting system. It includes two basic types of work: focus adjustment and design adjustment. Both should have been discussed with the client at the beginning of the job, again at the end of the aiming and adjusting of the newly installed, and when the record documents are provided to the owner. At that time, a decision needs to be made as to who will take the lead responsibility for both parts of this work, and a timetable for each of the tasks. Focus adjustment includes the maintenance tasks required to keep the project functioning as originally designed. This work consists of lamp replacement, fixture cleaning, maintaining the proper aiming of all fixtures, and restocking maintenance supplies. The owners can choose to learn to do this themselves or appoint either the original installer, the grounds staff, or the lighting designer as the responsible party. Lamp replacement can be done in one of two methods-- spot relamping or group relamping. Spot relamping refers to checking for burnt-out and replacing them in individual fixtures as they are found. It works best for accessible fixtures such as those located at or below grade. Group relamping refers to replacing areas of lamps as they start to fail. This works better for fixtures not easily accessible, such as tree mounted, building mounted, and underwater fixtures. For tree mounted fixtures, it is advisable to consider having this work done in conjunction with tree pruning. Fixture cleaning normally includes wiping the lens and fixture body with a cleaning solvent to remove any accumulating debris. Significant accumulation can occur quickly on many sites, and will severely diminish the light output from the fixtures. Typically, this work should be done sometime between quarterly and annually. Often, cleaning requires more effort. If the site's water contains salts or other chemicals, deposits on the lens may require special solvents or scraping to remove the residue. Maintaining the proper aiming of all fixtures refers to the process of checking the aiming of fixtures at night to retain the originally designed lighting effect. Wear and tear knocks fixtures out of adjustment. Visiting a site after several months will show how any combination of daily activities or events-- kids playing, garden maintenance, domestic and wild animal visitation, vehicular traffic, weather conditions, and plant growth-- can knock fixtures out of adjustment. Spending half an hour regularly to correct this keeps the lighting looking good. Restocking supplies avoids client panic in the future, and will help to encourage regular maintenance. The owner should have a minimum stock of 25% spare lamps (more if it is a remote location). This in conjunction with the documents showing them what lamp is in a specific fixture allows them the ease to replace any lamp at any time. They need anti-seize compounds and high heat lubricants to apply when relamping fixtures to avoid seizing of fixture parts or lamp bases to sockets. Design adjustment includes the maintenance work that tracks the development of the landscape responding to all its changes over time and providing visual and functional continuity in the lighting system. The lighting system needs to continually respond to any and all changes. The landscape changes that trigger checking the lighting system include: plant growth; adding, repositioning, or deleting of plant materials; and the adding, repositioning or removal of site furniture, paths, sculpture, stairs, water features, etc. This work should always be led by the lighting designer. Landscape changes might or not require lighting maintenance. As plants grow and change in size and shape, the original aiming may no longer produce the desired effect. Fixture reaiming includes adjusting the horizontal rotation or vertical angle to regain the intended lighting effect. In addition, relamping is done in conjunction with reaiming, as it is not likely that simply changing the wattage and beamspread will be effective in recapturing the original effect or creating the new effect. When the garden has experienced significant plant growth, fixtures often need to be relocated to reproduce the original effect. For example, a fixture may need to be moved away from a tree, as its trunk expands in girth. Fixtures will need to be relocated whenever a specimen tree or other feature is moved within the landscape. Removing fixtures is necessary when plants die or are simply removed. Losing an element in the landscape requires careful evaluation of the lighting composition to ensure that luminous cohesion is retained. And, adding fixtures becomes necessary when plants are added or grow significantly. This can be to maintain existing effects, or to respond to a new importance of a plant in the landscape. Any of these changes require referring to the existing record documents to make sure the system can accommodate load increase. It also requires updating the record documents after changes are completed. Because human memory fails and staffs change, accurate and current information must be available to everyone involved in the project's maintenance. Armed with thorough record documents, assignment of maintenance responsibility, and the tools and spare parts necessary to respond to maintenance issues, a client like Gil Nickel can budget costs for the ongoing maintenance of the lighting system. This allows Far Niente to plan their entertainment schedule, knowing that the lighting will be a memorable event for all their guests. lasn Guests driving or walking along Woodland Drive experience dappled light from the trees punctuated with uplighting of a few select large specimen trees along the way. The soft downlight spills over the edge of the planting onto the road, defining the edge of the road, but not distracting from the experience of the woodland lighting. Fixtures include Lumiere and Greenlee uplights and downlights. Electrical Contractor Eddie Burhans of Vintage Electric provided support for the design team. The intimate Cabernet Terrace sits on a knoll at the top of the vineyard property. Existing floods on the umbrella pole were retrofitted with pairs of up and down Lumiere MR11 fixtures to wash the umbrella. Oaks, uplit with Greenlee PAR38 fixtures hidden at the edge of the Terrace walls, surround the area. Low voltage Lumiere fixtures illuminate the bridge, pavilion, a majestic Quercus agrifolia, and the surrounding lawn. On the north and south sides of the Chardonnay Garden, groves of Betula nigra 'Heritage'-- installed by Britton Tree Service-- form a frame. Kim Lighting below-grade adjustable MR16 uplights sunk into the lawn are placed to graze the curling cinnamon brown bark of individual trees and accentuate the overall canopy of the grove.