Exterior Facade Lighting Design: How to Light Up Your Facade

What is Exterior Facade Lighting？

Facade lighting refers to the use of lamps to decorate the exterior walls of a building and to highlight the key architectural features of the building and to influence and determine the structure and first feel of the building. Exterior facade lighting is one of the types of facade lighting, the main feature is that it is widely used in government buildings, commercial buildings, residential and office buildings, etc.

The following video from Suntech can intuitively see the effect of exterior facade lighting:

   

For more exterior facade lighting designs and solutions, go now: architectural facade lighting projects

Exterior facade lighting Goals

The colorful exterior wall lighting which lighted by the DMX RGB flood light and DMX LED spotlight is not only reproduces the urban style, but also to provide people with a good night vision environment and living environment. In summary, the main objectives are as follows:

1. Clarify the outline of the city. The outline of the city under sunlight is determined by the shape, color and shadow of the buildings on the edge. Urban lighting clearly outlines the outline of the city, which is clearly different from the surrounding area. When the city is viewed from a height at night, the outline is complete. Clearly, it directly reflects the shape and scale of the city.

2. Highlight the urban structure. The construction of the lighting project emphasizes the main and quintessential part of the city and becomes a bright "map" part, which makes the urban structure stand out and is easy to identify, with a sense of orientation, layering and three-dimensionality.

3. Highlight the points, lines and planes of the city. The point light of the single city lighting is relatively uniform, which becomes the base of the city lighting environment. Regularly arranged street lights decorate the road into several light strips intertwined in the city, the primary and secondary are distinct, and the street lights make the road structure clear and easy to identify. Neon advertisements, light box signs, internal and external lights of buildings, etc. make the central area form bright areas embedded in the road network, making the structure of the central area of the city clear at a glance.

Exterior facade lighting Design Strategy

Create vertical surface brightness

Lighting that uses building vertical surfaces, building entrances, and monuments as markers or reference points is important for visual orientation. Surface brightness is critical for good nighttime visibility. The vertical light surface in particular improves the visibility and sense of safety for pedestrians. There are bright backgrounds or walls where people can see other people in action in silhouette. It also defines the walls of the exterior spaces, making the surroundings feel visually more comfortable and safer.

Enhanced pathfinding

Night lighting can help pedestrians find their way. This could be as straightforward as lighting directions or information signs. The illuminated signature façade also orients people and provides additional wayfinding at night.

Provide proper light temperature

Outdoor LED lighting temperature is an important criterion, and the ideal lighting temperature can vary from below 3000K to over 5000K depending on the application. While highly efficient, excessive lighting temperatures and associated blue light can affect circadian rhythms, cause glare, and lead to more light pollution. The American Medical Association recommends human and environmental impact community lighting with lighting temperatures of 3000K or lower LEDs in their study: "3000K lighting is only 3% less energy efficient than 4000K, but provides more pleasing light for humans and less impact on wildlife".

Different type of exterior facade lighting design    

1. Full wall lighting:

Washed lights create a very even light distribution on the facade. Exterior walls can make them look flat. Decreasing the illuminance as the façade height increases allows for a transition from low contrast to a dark night sky. Gradients of light on untextured walls become the dominant feature and are treated as separate patterns. Large, uniform surfaces can be given structures with light patterns. Luminaires close to the façade produce skimming light, emphasizing surface texture and structure. It is also important to avoid directing any light beyond the façade surface, be it the sides or the top.

2. Vertically separate lighting:

Floodlights produce uniform illumination on the façade, making surface textures and structures clearly visible, protruding columns separate these columns from the surrounding façade, and upper lights positioned on either side emphasize the volume of the columns. The combination of overhead and floodlights increases the division of the vertical façade by illuminating from above and below, the narrow beam enhances the effect of the vertical division, and the narrow light projection of the vertical division façade enhances the façade effect of the façade division.

3. Horizontal separate lighting:

Floodlights illuminate the entire façade and accentuate the horizontal division by casting heavy shadows. When casting light onto horizontally divided facades, upward lighting close to the facade enhances the three-dimensionality of the facade. Sometimes, LED linear lights can be arranged on the horizontal partition structure of the facade to represent the horizontal partition of the building.

4. Concave and convex surface segmentation:

In general, narrow beam floodlights can process different illuminances or different light colors on different parts of the concave and convex facade, increase the differentiation of the facade, and highlight the strong contrast between the illuminated area and the unilluminated area. The use of wide beam angle floodlights can illuminate the recessed parts of the building and make the building "balanced".

5. Windows or holes lighting:

When lighting a windowed or perforated façade, lighting is generally used to accentuate the outline of the window or opening, enhancing the dramatic sense of the building. Illuminated window frames accentuate the framing of the facade openings, while narrow beam uplights accentuate the facade's grid pattern. It should be noted that the floodlights produce a uniform light distribution on the facade, otherwise it will not cause the indoor users not to be dazzled.

6. Strip facade lighting:

For the strip-shaped layered façade, by spreading the light from the inside out, it enhances the building’s presence at night, the strong contrast between the bright interior lighting at night and the dark building exterior surface, can be achieved through the façade lighting in the Make some compensation.

7. Transparent glass screen lighting:

At night, the presence of interior lighting allows one to see the inside of the building, the bright interior lighting allows the framing of the façade to create a silhouette effect. Light from the ceiling areas of the various floors accentuates the horizontal building structure. The horizontal structure of the building is enhanced when linear lighting is applied to the top surface of each floor.

Exterior facade lighting Control Methods

Timer

The chronometer automatically adjusts according to the local latitude and longitude without reprogramming at different times. There are two types of timers: electromechanical and solid state relays. While electromechanical relays and solid state relays are basically similar, electromechanical relay timers have a limited contact life cycle, take up more space, and switch more slowly. Solid state timers have no such limitation. The main advantages of solid state relays are that they have no moving parts to wear out, so there are no contact bounce issues and faster on/off switching times.

Digital control

Digital lighting controllers can incorporate photoelectric sensors and astronomical timers for maximum control flexibility and energy savings. For example, a light sensor control can be used to configure the lighting to turn the input on at dusk and use a timer to control the input to turn off at midnight. Facilities used at night, such as loading docks, can be programmed to open at a certain time during the night and close at dawn.

Wireless technology

A wireless device is a lighting control device that operates on a wireless network. In a typical device wireless control system includes various configurations of lamps, motion sensors and photocells (fixture mounted) and a central zone controller (often called a gateway). While wired network systems offer better reliability, installation costs for materials and labor are significantly higher. The wireless device acts as a node, sending and receiving messages through multiple devices to a dedicated area controller. Mechanical topology creates stronger and more reliable wireless network structures. Mechanical networks provide two distinct benefits. First, the network can detect a problem with a particular component, and second it will reroute messages accordingly to protect the performance of the system.

Major type of exterior facade lighting

Yes, LED light is the most mature and proven design technology system in facade lighting. Offers significant performance and energy savings benefits, Key benefits included as below:

1. Long life: LED lighting fixtures have 50% output after 50,000 hours of use (5.7 years (24 hours a day) and 100,000 hours of operation.

2. Instant turn on: LED reaches 100% light output in less than 1 second.

3. Shock resistance: LED lamps can withstand vibration, shock and low temperature better than any other lighting methods available.

4. Mercury-free: LED lights do not contain mercury. Hazardous substances such as mercury are eliminated or reduced.

5. Directivity: The directionality of the LED is very strong, only 15° away from the center line of the lamp, and the light is directional.

6. Low heat: The heat load of the LED lighting system to the air conditioning or refrigeration system is negligible.

7. Stable performance: Although they will gradually dim after years of use, the LEDs will not suddenly break.

8. Works with Motion Sensing: LED lighting lights up as soon as motion is detected. LED lighting sensor with motion can be turned off or dimmed to save energy.

Exterior facade lighting fixtures

Service We Provide

Suntecled led have been engaged in LED lighting engineering for more than 10 years, and we have done a lot of facade lighting project in China and the Global, We offer a range of services from the design, installation and after-sales, if you want to optimise your building, just please click here to contact us for inquiry.

Professional Lighting Solutions Our professional lighting simulation and design team uses a variety of exterior LED lighting fixtures to create spatial patterns, symmetry, proportions that match the style of the building.	Project installation and running A dedicated project management team provides technical installers for each project to ensure proper installation and operation of the product.
A good after-sales service Our work is not done after the project is completed. We have professional after-sales service personnel to guarantee 100% customer satisfaction.	5 year product warranty We not only provide solutions, but also can customize products according to customer's needs, and provide 3-5 years warranty for each lighting product.

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