Megatrend Outdoor
Summer is the ideal time for celebrating with friends
The cicadas are chirping, orange clouds scurry across the sky. The evening stretches out ahead of us. We set chairs and tables out on the terrace and fire up the barbecue. The guests start to arrive. There’s no doubt about it, summer is the best time of the year for entertaining al fresco.
Megatrend Outdoor turns gardens and terraces into an extension of your living space, with waterproof lounge furniture, cushions and even carpets. Perfectly placed lamps transform your garden into a green stage. Here are a few things to bear in mind:
Develop an overall plan
The same rules apply to your garden as to life: it helps to focus your attention on key points. If you simply illuminate all the bushes, trees and shrubs in equal measure, they lose their special character. Instead of positioning lots of outdoor lamps in competition with each other, it’s well worth planning an overarching concept with a lighting professional or a designer who understands light. There are some key questions you should ask:
- How is the garden laid out? Is there a particular focal point such as an old tree that could be marked out for special attention?
- How and where can you create spatial depth to bring the whole garden to life?
- Would it be worth putting in various light scenarios that highlight different areas as dusk turns to night?
- Where will the power supply come from? Should you run new cables into the garden or are battery lights the best solution?
Setting accents
Every garden is unique, but many challenges can be resolved in advance through clever planning.
- Lighting for paths and steps
Good illumination with even, glare-free light provides safety and orientation
Important: The lower the visual focus, the shorter the distance must be between lamps. Lighting that can be walked on or driven over is useful in entrance areas. - Accent lighting
Flower beds, trees or pieces of art can look especially charming when lit by spotlights. Depending on the angle of the beam and the distance from the tree or shrub, you can highlight the crown of the tree, the foliage or the whole ensemble. - Façade lighting
Natural stone should be lit with blanket illumination to bring out its special texture.
Finding the right mixture
If you understand your garden as a living stage, you will be able to use a mixture of different light sources: diffuse light creates a pleasant background, while targeted light sets accents. It is only a combination of the two that creates the overall atmosphere. The Artemide Outdoor lamp collection offers the perfect light for every scenario:
- La Linea with its patented optics brings light without shadows. Highly sophisticated technology lies behind the apparently simple design. The flexible silicon light tube is suitable for both indoor and outdoor use.
- At around two metres in height, Tolomeo Paralume Outdoor makes a real statement. The lampshade is made of durable and washable material that protects the LED lamp from external weather conditions. Tolomeo Lampione, by contrast, comes without a lampshade and resembles historic streetlights.
- The sculptural "O" lamp is available in three sizes: 45, 90 and 150 centimetres. Pritzker prize-winner Alejandro Aravena developed an outdoor lamp that is as simple as it is natural. When unlit, it forms a picture frame for the natural world around it.
- For Reeds, Klaus Begasse got his inspiration from reeds swaying gently in the wind. The seven stalks made from acrylic glass blur the boundaries between nature and lighting.
Atmospheres can be engineered
The right atmosphere doesn’t happen by chance. A flexible lighting solution can transform a garden into a soothing retreat all day and all night, liberating you from the walls that surround you in everyday life:
- Lightweight yet full of light: battery power allows the elegant Come Together to shine for eight hours while at just 400 grams it is lightweight enough to position anywhere on the table or in the garden.
- Perfectly portable: Bontà creates ambience at the table. The portable designer lamp made of hand-blown glass radiates light while the glass dish encourages the sharing of culinary titbits.
- Long leads: Gople Outdoor from the Danish celebrity architect Bjarke Ingels brings new design freedom. The power is supplied through an extra-long cable with a moisture-proof IP plug. This means that Gople Outdoor can be moved around at will, offering countless applications in an open-air environment: as a floor, pendant or standard lamp in two sizes.
