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HOME / OUR WORK / GARDEN & ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING

03 / LANDSCAPE LIGHTING / CONTROL4

After dark.
Something extraordinary.

A layered exterior lighting scheme, designed, specified, installed and programmed into Control4 by us.

Explore the installation ↓

PROJECT STORY

Light with purpose.

One integrated approach, from the positioning of each light to the scene selected at the controls.

Design & specification

We designed and specified the complete exterior scheme, considering how each part of the garden and the architecture should look together after dark.

Installation

We installed the lighting throughout the landscape: specimen-tree uplighting, grazing light across stonework, illuminated garden features, paths and the building elevation.

Control4 integration

We programmed every circuit into Control4 as scenes, including colour-changing fittings that have no Control4 driver of their own.

The photographs show the actual installation, including different lighting scenes. The short videos below show how it looks in motion.

ORIGINAL PROJECT PHOTOGRAPHY

See the light.

Warm stone textures, planting, pathways and colourful architectural accents captured at dusk.

Garden trees uplighted against a brick boundary wall — Tree uplighting

Layered lighting across mature trees, planting and paths at dusk — Landscape lighting

Warm lighting grazing natural stonework and revealing the texture — Stone wall grazing

Illuminated planting and trees surrounding a greenhouse — Greenhouse and planting

Warm architectural lighting washing textured stonework by garden arch — Architectural wall lighting

Garden arch with carefully placed lighting along stone wall and planting — Garden arch and wall

Lit pathways, steps and building elevation at dusk — Pathway and façade

WATCH THE INSTALLATION

Lighting in motion.

Three locally hosted project videos. They play without visiting a third-party platform.

Trees and wall lighting

Tree uplighting and the brick-wall lighting viewed in motion.

Stonework and planting

A walkthrough showing light across the natural stone, planting and greenhouse.

Colour-changing architectural lighting

The colour-changing exterior lighting in operation.

THE PROJECT / ENGINEERING IN PRACTICE

The decisions behind the result.

01 / THE BRIEF

Make the garden work after dark.

The client wanted the garden to be usable and worth looking at after dark. The site has several distinct areas: mature planting, specimen trees, textured stone walls, paths, a greenhouse and the house elevations.

02 / THE CONSTRAINTS

Different surfaces need different light.

Flooding a garden with light flattens it. The aim was to light individual features so they stand out against the dark, while keeping the paths safe to walk. Outdoor fittings also have to cope with the weather, so ingress protection, cable type and connections all matter.

03 / WHAT WE DID

Specify, install and programme each layer.

We matched the technique to the surface:

uplighting on the specimen trees to give them shape;
grazing light run close to the stone walls to bring out the texture;
low-level lighting along the paths and around garden features;
architectural lighting on the house, including colour-changing fittings for accent.

The scheme uses two ranges: Collingwood fittings for the single-colour lighting, and Gap Lighting RGBW fittings for the colour-changing accents.

04 / THE CHALLENGE

Getting two systems to talk.

There is no Control4 driver for Gap Lighting. Rather than leave the colour-changing fittings on a separate app, we used Philips Hue as a bridge: Hue works with Gap Lighting, and Hue works with Control4. The result is that the RGBW lighting sits in the same scenes as everything else.

05 / THE RESULT

A garden with depth at night.

A garden that changes after sunset, with routes lit for safety and features lit for effect. The client can bring the whole garden up, or just the parts they're using, from their existing Control4 controls.

THE TECHNICAL DETAIL / FOR THOSE WHO WANT IT

How the scheme is controlled.

Two families of fittings, two control methods, one set of scenes.

01 / SINGLE COLOUR

Collingwood fittings

Single-colour, non-dimmable Collingwood fittings for the tree, wall and path lighting.

02 / SWITCHING

Control4 relay packs

Because the Collingwood fittings are non-dimmable, their circuits are switched through Control4 relay packs and grouped into scenes.

03 / COLOUR

Gap Lighting RGBW

Gap Lighting RGBW fittings provide the colour-changing architectural accents on the house.

04 / THE BRIDGE

Philips Hue to Control4

With no Control4 driver for Gap Lighting, Philips Hue bridges the RGBW fittings into Control4, so colour scenes run alongside everything else.

ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING / CONTROL4

Have a space worth lighting properly?

We handle the design, electrical installation and the control system as one project.

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