External and internal lighting – a new case study
Our latest finished project demonstrates how lighting can help make the most of a building’s situation. Lighting helps tie the outside and inside together while bringing out the richness of the natural building materials.
This new build home is situated in the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors National Park. The location is a major influence on the house. The build is integrated into a site with existing barns and outbuildings. It makes extensive use of timber and a warm local sandstone and lots of glass. Most of all it sits in a sheltered yet commanding position with amazing views of the garden and the countryside beyond. The lighting scheme extends beyond the house to help bring the outside in.
Lighting transforms the landing in the evening
The large landing is a marvellous airy space filled with morning sunlight and is the ideal place to sit and read. At night it’s transformed with high output ground-recessed lighting washing the wall shared with the adjoining barn.
Lighting extends beyond the glass doors. There are strategically placed carriage lanterns and we’ve lit the water feature to extend the sight line beyond the glass doors.
The external lighting is restrained
A little external lighting goes a long way, particularly when the only other source of light in the area is moonlight. The South and West facing aspects of the building are lit discretely with low power fittings. The soffit mounted downlights pick out the strong vertical timber posts and the ground recessed uplights pick up the warmth of the stone and ‘frame’ the view when looking at it from the inside of the house out.
The architectural LED fittings are complemented by the lanterns either side of the stone steps down to the lawn. The lanterns are deliberately low level, and again lead your eye out but without interrupting the view.
A contributor to the success of the scheme is the quality of the light fittings used. The architectural fittings are all tiny and very discrete. In a bronze finish they blend in with the stone work and timber. They also have very high quality LED chips inside with great colour rendering. It’s this quality of light that brings out the richness of the materials that the light is shining on.
