Garden Lighting

Why is it that so much of the garden lighting that looks beautiful at night can look pretty dire in the daytime? Lighting designers go to great lengths to conceal the light source in most garden lighting schemes - showing only the effect of light glowing.

But if you are trying to create a light sculpture, is it possible to design something that looks good during the day too?

I wonder if inspiration can be taken from Fiona Heron and her glass sculptures...

Golden Dew - Wolfgang and Heron

A range of individually-made flower sculptures. Hand blown glass heads on steel stems for the garden. £75 for groups of 5

Could these be adapted to become solar lights at night without loosing their essential translucent beauty?

Another designer who I think has suceeded in producing light sculptures that work both day and night is Julie Nelson

Elipse Sculpture by Julie Nelson

Her interest in ceramics, as a material for lighting, is not based on its translucency but on its opacity, the way the light bounces around and fills recesses, accentuating the form. All nelson lights serve a dual function; emitting a warm ambient light in the evening, whilst retaining their aesthetic appeal during the day.

Sponge Sculpture by Julie Nelson

I wonder how many of you have seen the vast light sculptures of Bruce Munro - currently installed at the Eden Project in Cornwall?

Field of Light by Bruce Munro

A dramatic light installation inspired by Australia's Red Desert, the installation has 6,000 acrylic stems, 11 external projectors - and uses more than 24,000 meters of fibre-optic cable to create the Field of Light

As the artist Bruce Munro explains “I wanted to create a field of light stems, that like the dormant seed in a dry desert would quietly wait until darkness falls, and then under a blazing blanket of southern stars bloom with gentle rhythms of light. One's attention is thus drawn to the nature that surrounds the installation as well as the field of light itself.”