Overview:
This entertainment friendly backyard belongs to an unassuming home on a quiet street in Columbus, Indiana.
The owner purchased the lot next to his own and decided to remove the home and expand his current backyard to create an expansive space where he could entertain guests and family that would allow plenty of elbow room and gathering areas for lively conversation or to simply kick back and put their feet up to enjoy a quiet evening alone amidst a beautifully lit space.
Priorities:
The primary motivation for lighting this space was to create an atmosphere where large groups of people could gather and would have ample illumination for conversing and moving about the property safely after dark.
Secondarily, the owner simply loved the look and feeling of the subtle atmosphere created by low intensity lighting at night and wanted to adopt this feeling throughout his different spaces around the property.
He also didn’t want to be in “party mode” all the time, so it was important that he could vary the lighting scenes and intensities to fit the occasion and mood for who was in it.
Challenges:
The key challenges for this backyard illumination included:
Balancing illumination levels evenly throughout the backyard space for all guests.
Eliminating and mitigating light glare from the light fixtures which are viewed from multiple angles around the yard and pool area.
Engineering the power layouts and circuit distribution so that the various zones could be setup and dimmed or shut off via the homes central control interface.
Solution:
To balance the lighting around the backyard, we used a combination of soft output light sources that were attached to surrounding walls, wood structures, under steps and along walkways to provide light for safe navigation.
Up lighting was used to illuminate trees and other landscape elements that provided the backdrop visuals around the yard space. In the main gathering area, bistro style string lights were installed above the dining area to provide further enhanced illumination for events that required a higher level of luminocity.
There are a total of 9 power centers on the property that are all linked with Cat5 data cable to link the system together for the homes Control4 home automation system, making it easy for the client to select specific preset moods and scenes at the touch of a button.
Awards Won:
This project was awarded the top prize (Award of Excellence) in the Outdoor Living Lighting category from the AOLP (The Association of Outdoor Lighting Professionals) in 2024.
