Create an ideabook for your next remodeling project!
Browse more than 1,000,000 photos from top designers and save your favorites
Architecture at Night: Lanterns in the Landscape
As days grow shorter we can see modern home design in a whole new light
Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City. I have Bachelor of Architecture and Master in Urban Planning degrees, and over ten years experience in architectural practice, split between Chicago and NYC. Currently I'm focused on writing and online pursuits. My daily blog can be found at http://archidose.blogspot.com
Houzz Contributor. I am an architect and writer living in New York City.... More »
In many places autumn means changing leave and falling temperatures, but just about everywhere it equates with shorter days. A significant signal of the last occurs when Daylight Saving Time (DST) ends, usually about a week after Halloween, and sunset moves forward one hour.
This shift brings nighttime closer to the end of the workday, making people aware of the way buildings are illuminated and the unique presence they have after the sun goes down. This ideabook celebrates architecture at night as a means to point out different strategies for artificially lighting interiors and exteriors, and just for the fun of looking at houses in a different light.
More: Translucent Surfaces — Canvases for Light and Shadow
This shift brings nighttime closer to the end of the workday, making people aware of the way buildings are illuminated and the unique presence they have after the sun goes down. This ideabook celebrates architecture at night as a means to point out different strategies for artificially lighting interiors and exteriors, and just for the fun of looking at houses in a different light.
More: Translucent Surfaces — Canvases for Light and Shadow
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| This two-family house is articulated into two steel-and-glass pavilions linked by a glass hallway. Color is used to distinguish these two residences in one project. It is most striking at night when red surfaces glow and blue stripes stand in a vertical contrast. The abundance of glass means the colors visually blend and overlap. |
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
As in the previous example, this photo and the few that follow show how backyards — which often are architecturally more open than building fronts — tend to glow at night. This house by Paul Raff Studio features minimal but effective outdoor lighting in the pool and under the canopy; the former gives a nice splash of color. Note how the random slots in the double-height wall next to the stair are highlighted by the illumination of the room behind it.
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
This house, whose various rooms alit describe the multitude of openings (punched, corner, curtain wall), also integrates a common exterior light in modern houses: down lights built into soffits or eaves. They are visible in the roof at top-right and the overhanging volume at left. Light on both sides of a pane of glass allows one to look through it; if light is predominantly on one side, the glass is more opaque.
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| In this photo we see the eave lights just like those in the previous example. Here it visually extends the living space into the terrace beyond. And note the clerestory at left, especially the way the light washes the underside of the roof and creates a halo effect. |
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| This house incorporates glass-block pavers in a circle that glows at night. The glass block serves as a skylight during the day and a unique lantern at night. |
Lantern is an apt word for this house's presence at night, given the translucent walls below the corrugated metal roofs.
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
A house's presence at night can also be aided by uplights that highlight surfaces, as in this sculptural house by Myron Goldfinger. These sorts of lights should be used carefully and sparingly (or as down lights instead), so as not to contribute to light pollution that blocks out the night sky.
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| This houses uses a few exterior lighting strategies: a wall-wash fixture (the source is out of frame at bottom) that signals the stairs to the front door; down lights in the canopy that clearly demarcate the entry path up to and through the gate; and uplights that highlight the texture of the wood cladding and provide some ambient light for eating outside. |
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| Various lights in the landscaping illuminate the path to the front door of this house. The glow of the interior spaces gives the house a strong layering, from the prominent corner window to the entry behind the garden wall and finally the high windows set back beyond. |
| Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
|
| The front of this house is lit by low wall fixtures near the front door and uplights set into the ground (note the circular cover at left) that point up into the trees. The different colors of the curtains in the windows are a nice touch. |
by Randy Brown
»
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
This daring design features a cantilevered bar across a volume set into the ground. The former is reached by a footbridge over the steep slope. At night the cantilever is prominent due to the expansive glass being illuminated, but the soft white glow of the bridge steals the (light)show.
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
Like the previous example, this house gains prominence through illuminating the space behind the expansive glass walls. The underside of the projecting floors is also lit up, hinting at the presence of a space underneath. (It's a playroom fashioned from an old bunker the house sits upon.)
by Alterstudio
»
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
To continue with glowing boxes, the glass wall at the top floor features projecting glass fins that add some subtle color and a rhythm to the long elevation.
Like it? Save it to your Ideabook »
This house's design is accentuated at night: The frosted glass doors cover the garage; above are large glass walls and the double-height living area; to the left are spaces, such as bedrooms, that want privacy. The same reading can happen during the day, but at night the void (glass) comes to the fore as the solid (walls) recedes in our imagination.
More:
Translucent Surfaces: A Canvas for Light and Shadow
Bathe in the Light of Clerestory Windows
Ribbon Windows: Privacy and Light
Skinny Windows: Exclamation Points of Light
More:
Translucent Surfaces: A Canvas for Light and Shadow
Bathe in the Light of Clerestory Windows
Ribbon Windows: Privacy and Light
Skinny Windows: Exclamation Points of Light
Ideabook updated on Nov. 2, 2011.
What are you working on?
News From Our Partners
Latest Ideabooks
People found the photos in this ideabook after searching for:
View over a million photos:
robin
robinwadefurniture.com