No End in Sight
By Janet Lennox Moyer, RLA, Principal, MSH Visual Planners, Brunswick, NY
Above, night: Below, day: The foreground of Evening Island at the Chicago Botanical Gardens can be better sculpted with light using newly developed wet/dry fixtures rated for use within 10 feet of a water feature.
Design by Janet Lennox Moyer; Photos COURTESY of George Gruel
Landscape lighting continues to surge forward as a growth industry with no slowdown in sight. This unfettered growth of our industry and the proliferation of new manufacturers signals a continually expanding market for landscape lighting.
When my book, The Landscape Lighting Book, was first published in 1992, less than 20 major landscape lighting fixture manufacturers offered reasonable quality fixtures. Today, we have well over 40 manufacturers with new companies continuing to open their doors every year. Imported equipment, from far flung countries such as Australia and New Zealand, often leads the way in innovation and their products are available to us at reasonable cost. Simultaneous to this explosion of fixture manufacturers have come fixture innovations and new fixture ?EUR??,,????'??ratings?EUR??,,????'??? from testing laboratories.
Wet/dry fixtures need to have the same flexibility for aiming and shielding, and need to hold up with no visual or functional signs of corrosion.
PHOTO COURTESY OF George GrueL
This expansion increases the pressure on those of us involved in the design and installation of this art medium to continue to keep up the high quality of our work. I believe it also requires those of us with experience and knowledge to help other professionals produce high quality lighting projects. Creating a beautiful night scene that neither disturbs the neighbors, (human or animal) or the ?EUR??,,????'??feeling?EUR??,,????'??? of the night environment, while remaining intact aesthetically and functionally over many years, requires initial attention to detail during design and construction along with a full commitment to maintenance.
The view from a boathouse under construction to the view across a lake during the day plus a rendering of potential lighting, helped a client decide how involved they wanted the lighting on this portion of the property to be. If the trees, grasses, and shrubs along the slope were not included in the lighting, there would be a distinct and expansive cut-off line in the scene's reflection at night.
PHOTO COURTESY OF Jan Moyer
Rendering COURTESY OF George GrueL
The equipment that we recommend and install in our client?EUR??,,????'???s gardens must be built from high quality materials and be of solid construction to hold up when continually exposed to the corrosive nature of the surrounding air, water and soils. When reviewing a fixture to specify on a project, we need to check that the aiming mechanism provides positive locking to maintain the required aiming. To encourage the owner to pay attention to maintaining the lighting system, accessing the lamps inside the fixtures should be easy ?EUR??,,????'??+preferably not requiring any tools?EUR??,,????'??+for relamping. These issues plus all the others involved in fixture selection and installation technique make or break the on-going success of an installation.
Lighting fixtures placed in low lying areas, such as on the path shown at the left, are often subject to flooding conditions that can cause problems with the fixture integrity. These problems can comprise one or more of the following: water intrusion into lamp compartments, seizing of aiming mechanisms or lamp compartment access points and/or partial to total disintegration of the fixture body, socket and waterproofing.
More and more, the projects we find ourselves working on include water features that are an integral, often focal element in the landscape. Lighting objects or trees near water has always been difficult due to the NEC requirement that fixtures either be placed under water with a submersible rating, or be held back at least 10 feet from the edge of water. Within the last few years, a new category of fixture has emerged, the wet/dry fixture.
Wet/dry fixtures emerged from submersible fixtures and have most of the same characteristics, including sockets and feed-cable rated as suitable to function when underwater. Fixtures with this new label are tested to withstand being under six feet of water and remain intact, with no water intrusion, during several cycles of turning the fixture on/off. The important difference between these fixtures and existing submersible fixtures is that they are rated to be energized outside of water and located within that previous untouchable ?EUR??,,????'??ten foot?EUR??,,????'??? band around a water feature. These fixtures are also rated to be completely submerged, although they are not intended to be used for, or as a subsitute for, fixtures with submersible ratings in fountains or swimming pools.
The lighting features on Evening Island at the Chicago Botanical Gardens are of primary importance, ranging from bridge and path lighting to spectacular tower lighting. The trees, however, are within the 10-foot zone at the edge of the lake and therefore needed to be lit with wet/dry lighting fixtures. Wet/dry fixtures are perfect for locations that have annual or seasonal temporary flooding due to rainfall, soil saturation, and/or runoff from other areas or neighboring properties.
In order to qualify for this rating these wet/dry fixtures are typically brass or bronze, making them heavy, more expensive than aluminum units and typically physically larger than their aluminium counterparts. Other than that, they mimic the adjustable accent fixtures we all use everyday (See page 69).
Often, to light a tree, sculpture or other feature located either near or within a water feature, a fixture needs to be within that 10-foot-zone. Over the years I have also found many areas where fixtures need to be placed in a location at a site that has ongoing, often annual or seasonal (more or less), temporary flooding due to rainfall, soil saturation, and/or runoff from other areas or neighboring properties. Flooding can easily cause problems with the fixture integrity of even the best made fixtures. These problems can comprise one or more of the following: water intrusion into lamp compartments, seizing of aiming mechanisms or lamp compartment access points and/or partial to total disintegration of the fixture body, socket and waterproofing. You can probably think of others that I haven?EUR??,,????'???t listed here. The availability of wet/dry fixtures offers us a solution to these many previous headaches caused by normal weather patterns and site conditions.
These fixtures complete the shore scraping for the middle of the view where the grade has come down nearly to the water line. Here, the planting consists of large sweeps of grasses to allow a view to the back of the island.
PHOTO COURTESY OF George GrueL
From a design standpoint, the opportunity to locate fixtures within the 10-foot-zone has increased our ability integrate lighting effects. A view to a distant vista or destination can be better visually tied together across a scene or with other areas of a landscape. (See page 68).
The concept of a more complete reflection can be seen in the images from the newly installed lighting at the Chicago Botanic Gardens (CBG), Evening Island. This island serves primarily as a vista at night from a main entertainment venue, the McGinley Pavilion, located on the other side of a lake called the Great Basin. The overall lighting scene incorporates several mini-compositions across the breadth of the island. Untrained eyes often assume that the lighting ?EUR??,,????'??is all the same level?EUR??,,????'???, when actually subtle light level variation is what creates the three-dimensional scene. Eliminating extreme light level variation across an expanse of a scene provides cohesion throughout the scene. Using subtle light variation within mini-compositions, also expands a sense of space.
If the trees, grasses, and shrubs along the slope were not included in the lighting, there would be a distinct and expansive cut-off line in the scene's reflection at night. Below: The view to Evening Island becomes visually disconnected when the middle shore-scraping lighting is turned off.
Designs by Janet Lennox Moyer; Photos COURTESY OF George Gruel
To create a cohesive scene that incorporates the entire expanse across CBG?EUR??,,????'???s Evening Island, it was necessary to provide what we termed ?EUR??,,????'??Shore Scraping?EUR??,,????'???. The shoreline on Evening Island consists of a steep slope from the shore up to the main occupied area of the island. This topography has to do with local flooding. The area that encompasses the steep shoreline limits annual flooding of the main area. Images #5 & #6 illustrate the visual disconnect when the middle shore-scraping lights are turned off.
All the fixtures located within the ?EUR??,,????'??flood plain?EUR??,,????'??? area are wet/dry fixtures. This includies two pairs of fixtures that are actually located in the lake and above the water line (See image, top, P. 72). Again, if that area had not been included in the shore scraping, the lit scene as veiwed from across the lake, would be visually disconnected.
For this project, the client required renderings and a full-scale mockup of the lighting ideas in order to understand the lighting approach and to approve moving from conceptual design to contract documents. Not all projects require renderings and producing renderings can add substantially to the project budget. Yet, creating a rendering as a ?EUR??,,????'??tool?EUR??,,????'??? to help a client understand the lighting can be invaluable.
Underwater fixtures developed in the last year are inow n the process of being installed in projects in the North East. A submersible linear strip light can be mounted underneath some large (roughly 5' by 12') stepping stones across a pond on the way to the entry of a home.
Renderings can take many forms, and for years we have produced beautiful hand-drawn renderings that could be considered art. The advent of lighting calculation computer programs has added the option of producing computer generated renderings. At about the same time that these lighting calculation programs, such as AGI, were being developed, programs including Digital Darkroom and Photo Shop were being created for the graphic design industry. These were both originally designed for the MAC platform. Programs such as Photo Shop are now equally useable across platforms (on PC machines too).
Using any of these programs, sophisticated imagery can be created. A caution we need to heed is that we know the lighting we show to our clients in these images can actually be produced. When we show a client an image, they expect that image to be what they will see in their garden when the new lighting is activated. Manipulation of data provided to a computer rendering program allows for producing very impressive renderings, but, ones that may be too representational and not realistic. With lighting calculation programs, a limitation has always been that they can?EUR??,,????'???t take into account the complex nature of plant structure, limiting the natural appearance of trees.
The prototype for this swimming pool fixture utilizes approximately 0.9 to 1.3 watts per unit. The cost of this unit is high at the moment due to the rigorous demands to meet UL swimming pool standards. As sales of this type of unit increase, the prices will come down.
PHOTOs COURTESY George Gruel
Using professional photo editing software, such as Photo Shop, allows us to take a daytime photograph of a site and realistically create a rendering that illustrates one or more lighting options. As with most computer programs that we use, Photo Shop is a powerful tool that has capabilities most of us don?EUR??,,????'???t even know exist or understand how to utilize. To produce realistic imagery we need to find someone that has the software experience (with this program or any other) to best utilize the software capabilities. But that peron also has to have artistic skills and be able to understand the lighting effects we want to show.
We are starting to see more and more outdoor lighting equipment integrating light emitting diodes, known as LED?EUR??,,????'???s. I believe that this light source offers new opportunities in landscape lighting, especially for underwater use. These fixtures will cast a glow under the water and around the stones to amplify the line between land and water. With over 100 feet of strip, the total wattage is only 36 watts and costs roughly $40.00 per lineal foot.
Underwater steplights for a pool are being developed (See above). The fixture consists of a solid brass niche with an internal compartment of LED?EUR??,,????'???s. The array of lamps can easily vary based on the light level requirement. The fixture is 2-1/2 inches high by 3-1/2 inches deep and 6 inches long.
I started this article saying how exciting the landscape lighting industry was becoming back in the early 1990?EUR??,,????'???s as the explosion of equipment started, and as you can see there isn?EUR??,,????'???t any end in sight.
The view from a boathouse under construction to the view across a lake during the day plus a rendering of potential lighting, helped a client decide how involved they wanted the lighting on this portion of the property to be. If the trees, grasses, and shrubs along the slope were not included in the lighting, there would be a distinct and expansive cut-off line in the scene's reflection at night.
MSH Visual Planners
107 Leversee Road
Brunswick, New York 12182-1613
(for mail use city of ?EUR??,,????'??Troy?EUR??,,????'???)
Email: for Jan moyerj@nycap.rr.com; for AutoCAD files mshvp@nycap.rr.com
The second edition of Janet Lennox Moyer?EUR??,,????'???s book, ?EUR??,,????'??The Landscape Lighting Book?EUR??,,????'?? will be released shortly from John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
