Architectural Outdoor Lighting, Lighting the Building, Not Just the Outline|What Does Architectural Lighting Actually Mean?|Understanding Architectural Lighting for a Real Building

What the word architectural is doing here

The word sounds like marketing, but there is an actual distinction under it. The difference is between drawing around a house and lighting its parts. One treats the house as a silhouette. The other treats it as a building with peaks, recesses, columns and texture.You do not have to name any of it to know what you are looking at. The useful test is whether somebody can point at your building and tell you what the plan responds to. If the answer is specific to your house, you are talking to a designer. If it describes a product, you are talking to a salesperson.

Which features are worth lighting

Every building gives you something to work with. Peaks, columns, dormers, a material change, a porch under a roof. Those are where the design starts, and the rest of the plan supports them.

Why lighting everything is a mistake

Most people assume more coverage is better. It is the wrong instinct. Depth comes from contrast, and the dark sections carry as much of the design as the bright ones. Even coverage flattens the facade, which is the opposite of what anybody wanted.A building lit this way reads as considered rather than decorated, and most people notice it without being able to name why.

Two versions of the same idea

Residential work answers to the street view. On a commercial building, the job adds a second requirement: it needs to be found, and it needs to read as in business. A lit facade is legible from further away than lettering, and it can change with the season.

Where the LED system fits

A permanent LED system is architectural lighting that also happens to do holidays. One install, two functions, and the architectural one runs the other eleven months.

Grazing, and the other techniques without the jargon

Designers have shorthand for a handful of techniques. Washing is broad, flat light on a wall, which suits smooth siding and large plain faces. Grazing exaggerates texture. https://evercrestlighting.com/about/ Uplight is for columns and trunks.

Picking the white

There is a range of whites, and the material decides. Warm white flatters brick, wood, stucco and warm stone, which is why it is the usual answer. Cooler suits glass and grey, and a little goes a long way. Mixing them on one building is what looks wrong.

Where to begin if you want this done properly

Architectural lighting starts with somebody looking at the building. A plan drawn for your house will tell you why each run is where it is. EverCrest Lighting designs and installs architectural lighting for homes and businesses across Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina, out of Greenville. The consultation is free. Call (864) 252-1732 or email [email protected].

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