The Challenge

    Coastal resort Peppers Blue on Blue were looking to upgrade their landscape lighting to breathe new life into their outdoor space. After years of wear and tear, their outdoor lighting system was old and inefficient.

    Original landscape lighting design plans were no longer available, and the gardens had also changed considerably since lights were first installed around
    the grounds. A significant update was required to make the lighting more efficient, user friendly and easier to maintain while illuminating the tropical splendour of the resort at night.

    The Approach

    To understand what the client wanted to achieve with their new landscape lighting design, we visited the resort and met with the Maintenance Manager and General
    Manager. While there, we toured the resort and inspected the existing lighting system. It included a mixture of halogen spikes, 240V CFL wall lights, 240V bollards and 240V floods.

    The garden had grown over many fittings and power supplies, many casings were cracked and no longer water-tight, some spikes had rotted out and a number of bollards were loose. Several lights weren’t working and lights in most areas had a mismatch of warm white and cool white colour temperature globes in them.

    Based on this, we established the scope of the work and made recommendations about what new lighting would be required.

    In the garden, we replaced roughly 180 individually powered spikes with sleek new black powder-coated brass AQL-503 spikes connected to 70 shared 24V Aquatran AQO power supplies – significantly reducing the number of power supplies.. Fitting a number of globes from the Aqualux AGL drop-in LED range, the MR16 AQL-503 allowed globes with different lumen outputs, beam angles, colour temperatures and colours. The globes can also be changed by general maintenance staff, giving the client the power to replace and change the lights.

    For the flood lights, we used the same AQL-503 fitting but with AGL-550 6W drop-in LED to suit the task of illuminating tall, well-established trees.

    Most of the bollards were changed for either AQL-135 spike bollards or sturdy AQL-136 600mm surface mount bollards. Unsightly old 240V bollards mounted around the deck were replaced with sleek, low-profile AQL-565 brass surface mount runway lights.

    The CFL wall lights were converted to LEDs and replaced with elegant brushed chrome AQL-420 slotted step lights, while makeshift poles and cheap festoon lights were replaced by new permanent poles, 80 metres of AQF-C-050B festoon cable and 161 AQF-G-003 1W LED filament globes.

    We lit dark paths near the large pool by installing new landscape lighting around pool areas. And we replaced old batten lights mounted on outdoor structure beams with AQL-176 12W surface mount pucks. We also lit two signs using AQL-980 RGBW floods that could change colours using a wireless remote control. And lastly, we added AQF fairy lights to a row of trees on the front footpath – a magical sight for people arriving on the island at night on the water taxi or car ferry.

    The Insight

    The success of any larger lighting project comes down to a thorough understanding of the client’s requirements and careful planning to achieve their goals.

    We sourced a fire evacuation plan to use as the basis of our lighting plan so we could be confident we had all areas covered. After assessing the existing lighting and identifying significant room for improvement in both the placement and the types of lights currently in use, we designed a plan to illuminate the grounds with maximum efficiency and effect. We stayed on site for seven days to get the job done quickly (working outside of school holidays and peak periods) to ensure as little interruption as possible.

    The Outcome

    We meticulously outlined the placement of the system, suggesting types of fittings, finish, brightness, beam angle and colour temperature or colour of LEDs to be used.

    Existing halogen bulbs and CFLs were replaced with LEDs, greatly reducing the power consumption of the whole system.

    New lights were strategically chosen based on aesthetic appeal as well as efficiency, flexibility and ease of use.