Transform your space with outdoor lights this summer

Lights play a special role in design inside and outside the home, with the latter having grown increasingly important for elevating entertainment areas. 

The flow of indoor to outdoor spaces has been a trend for many years. More recently, families are placing more value on time spent at home together and with close friends and relatives. 

“These trends drive more usable and enticing outdoor area at home. This was further accelerated by Covid where people were forced to spend much more time at home and realised how small the ‘four walls’ can be. This Covid period highlighted that family time is precious and having a very inviting and enjoyable outdoor area at home helps facilitate this,” says Todd Lynton, Director of Special Lights. 

Similar to inside the home, a relaxed outdoor space has many positive impacts on wellbeing by reducing stress levels and creating a calming environment. Outdoor lights can be used in a few ways to achieve this:

• Implementing dimmed/soft lighting combined with accent lighting on only a few surfaces or areas (such as subtle reflected light from the ceiling of a covered deck or soft lighting reflected from the nearby walls) creates a gentle ambience as opposed to harsh downlights or spotlights from above. 
• Choosing the right colour temperature is crucial in creating the right atmosphere for your space. “The past two–three years has seen a move towards warmer colour temperatures for outdoor lighting to create that relaxed mood,” says Todd. “We are seeing more outdoor lighting specifications with colour temperature requirements from 2200K to 2700K, when five years ago this may have been 3000K. Key suppliers and manufacturers, especially from Europe, are ahead of this trend and are manufacturing a much larger product range with warmer colour temperatures.”  
• Solar and battery-operated lighting offers flexibility in your lighting design, helping achieve a personalised outdoor space. Create different lighting scenes by moving them around to where you’re sitting, hanging them overhead or grouping them to create a soft glow. Battery-operated and solar outdoor lights can often be installed without the need for wiring, with their cost-effectiveness and eco-friendliness as added benefits.  

While there’s been a growing focus on outdoor lighting, there’s also an acknowledgement by homeowners and designers that lights can add to the country’s growing light pollution.

“Dark Sky is about reducing or eliminating light pollution where general lights outside ‘leak’ some of their light into the sky and atmosphere. This light that simply vanishes into the sky represents wastage, can annoy neighbours, and collectively with many other lights, create a general glow in a city or town area which means you can’t enjoy a night black sky with well-defined stars,” explains Todd. 

For those wishing to reduce their light pollution, it’s good to look at your existing outdoor lighting and observe the light leaking into the atmosphere. 

“Consider changing those lights with products that reflect the light away from the sky and onto a surface, such as the ground or a wall. Also, try to ensure that revised lighting is of a warmer colour (2700K or less) which provides a softer and much less ‘stark’ effect.” 

The Hogar Wall Light, Gic Outdoor Wall Light, and Moai Bollard from Special Lights are all Dark Sky-suitable. 

With so many lighting options to choose from to suit your space, exploring the range of products from Special Lights is a great place to start. Visit their Sydney showroom or get in touch with the team to learn more.