Landscape Architect Articles

Wish Fulfillment11-10-15 | Feature

Wish Fulfillment
Lighting Solutions for Special Conditions

Any landscape job could call for special lighting requests that stretch the bounds of a contractor's experience, from underwater lighting to a one-of-a-kind ambience. Presented here are a few examples of how to handle situations that call for more than customary illumination of softscape.

Illuminating Streams
Fountain lights can be freestanding as they are here at the Avalon, a mixed-use development located in Alpharetta, Ga. Roman Fountains partnered with Site Solutions and Hemma Concrete for the design and construction of the show fountain. Its central RJC-300 Jet Cluster nozzle is illuminated by six LED submersible fixtures that the fountain company had manufactured for them. The six surrounding RJC-200 Jet Clusters, the interior smoothbore nozzles, and the exterior sequencing smoothbore nozzles each have one of the fixtures focused on the stream of water they produce.

As one of the first steps in the installation, the electrical conduit for the lights was placed in an underground trench along with the supply and discharge water pipes. Wires were connected to a lighting control panel in a dedicated equipment room that also contains the pumps. The wires were pulled first to a standard junction box, and then to separate underwater junction boxes. After the concrete basin was formed and the nozzles set and hooked up, the lights were positioned at the bottom of the basin. Once the fountain was turned on, the lights' positions and beam throws were fine-tuned. The lighting controller adjusts the intensity of each fixture's red, green and blue diode to create different colors.

Efficient Deck Lighting
Sean McAleer, the owner of Deck Remodelers in Sparta, N.J., built this 800-square-foot, multilevel deck with stadium seating adjacent to a bi-level home in Springfield, N.J. For lighting, McAleer took advantage of i-lighting's LED Easy Plug• connection technology, which involves no cutting, splicing or wire nuts, and can provide near invisible results. Each lighting system is available with either clear white or warm yellow LEDs. Strip light lengths can be customized to meet contractor requirements.

Make It Sparkle
Initially created to illuminate theme park attractions, Bliss Lights' Spright Motion fixture projects thousands of moving pinpoints of colored light with an infinite focal range – no matter what they are projected on, each pinpoint stays in focus. To achieve this, a laser is passed through a holographic optical element, which in turn passes through an electromechanical wheel, which is driven by a precision motor, to create the motion of the star field. One light's coverage is up to 2,500 square feet. It is mounted in the ground with a stake. The two-prong end of the provided cord plugs into a copper socket inside the provided transformer, which then can be plugged into any standard AC outlet.

Focusing Submersibles
At this Spanish styled home in Ski Island just north of Enid, Okla., Scott Conrady, owner of Grand Ave Lighting, installed all the landscape lights including the underwater fixtures in the fountain. He used 12 Focus SL-33-LAS40 with collars, which allow more control over where light falls and limit light pollution. Each fixture is outfitted with an aiming bracket that was mounted to the side or bottom of the bowls. The brackets and the collars create very focused lights. There are six fixtures in the lower tier, four in the middle, and two in the top. All used the optional 4 W Arrow LEDs (the standard lamp is a 20 W MR16 ULTRA FL) and the 12 were set on their own transformer. The wiring runs down through the middle of the fountain and out the bottom, and is direct buried to the transformer. For the architectural lighting, Conrady used DL-13 and DL-22 LEDs.