Overview:
Austin Landing in Dayton, Ohio is a retail center that features an assortment of bustling retail stores and high-end chain food restaurants, surrounded by a commercial business park and apartments.
At the heart of the development is a 7-1/2-acre park, replete with walking paths, waterfalls, ponds and a variety of dining shelters and open grass spaces for community gatherings. The park was designed by Bayer Becker Landscape Architecture.
Priorities:
Provide an illumination plan for the park that would encourage and empower shopper, diners and nearby residents to be able to utilize the park during the dark evening hours too.
Because this park is situated in the center of this busy retail complex, and much of the commerce is conducted through the evening hours, it was important to provide an illumination plan for the park that would encourage and empower shopper, diners and nearby residents to be able to utilize the park during the dark evening hours also.
This meant that pathways and bridges would need to be illuminated for navigation and key features such as waterfalls, architectural structures and key plant material would need to be illuminated in such a way as to further enhance the visual comfort and key assets of the park.
Challenges:
The key challenges for this park’s illumination included:
Balancing illumination levels with nearby businesses and restaurants so that the park maintained a lively and vibrant feel throughout the night.
Eliminating and mitigating glare from the light fixtures which are viewed from multiple angles around the park.
Creating a cost-sensitive plan for changing colors around various holidays to create a dynamic display that matched the occasion.
Additional challenges came from the existing sconce lights on the house that had light bulbs in them that were far too bright trying to compensate for the lack of thoughtful and balanced lighting around the home and property.
Solution:
Lighthouse used a higher number of low energy light fixtures around the park with a slightly increased lumen level to fall into a better balance with the very bright commercial lighting on the surrounding buildings.
These low energy light fixtures made it much easier on the eyes for the visitors in the park, reducing eye strain. In several areas, in-ground lights were used in place of directional spotlights to keep the light contained to the specific objects they were illuminating without having direct glare in key areas.
It was also important to illuminate the falls and pond as a key focal point area, using light to visually connect the audible sound of crashing water with the visual excitement of the illuminated movement of falling and tumbling water.
The walkways and structures were illuminated using a series of heavy-duty bollards and task specific integrated lighting for the gathering spaces. For seasonal display, color changing RGBWW LEDs were employed to adapt the park’s visual color theme to match the various holidays and local events.
Awards Won:
This project was awarded the top prize in the Commercial lighting category from the AOLP (The Association of Outdoor Lighting Professionals) in 2019.
