Outdoor Lighting Design Guide
Pole spacing, cutoff and light pollution.
1. Why it matters
Outdoor lighting has to provide safety and visibility while surviving weather, surges and years of exposure — and, increasingly, while respecting light-pollution and dark-sky rules. Car parks, facades, pathways and area lighting each need the right illuminance and uniformity with glare and spill controlled, on fixtures rated to last outdoors. The design trade-off is between seeing enough, wasting nothing, and not lighting the sky or the neighbours.
2. Illuminance and uniformity by application
| Application | Maintained lux | Uniformity |
|---|---|---|
| Car park (surface) | 20-50 lx | Emin/Eavg ≥ 0.25 |
| Pedestrian path | 10-30 lx | Even, no dark gaps |
| Building facade | Design by material/effect | Controlled spill |
| Entrance / loading | 100-200 lx | High for security |
3. Durability: built to survive outdoors
Outdoor fixtures fail on environment, not light output, so specify for the elements. Weather sealing, surge immunity and corrosion resistance decide whether the installation lasts its rated life or needs a truck roll every season.
- IP65 minimum; IP66 for exposed/coastal; IK08+ where vandalism is a risk.
- Surge protection 10 kV for street/area (grid + lightning transients).
- Corrosion: marine-grade housing/coating near coast or de-icing salt.
- Wide operating-temperature driver; photocell/timeclock for dusk-to-dawn.
4. Glare, spill and dark-sky compliance
Good outdoor lighting puts light only where it is needed. Use full-cutoff or fully-shielded fixtures that emit no light above horizontal, which controls glare, eliminates uplight (skyglow) and keeps spill off neighbouring property. Many jurisdictions now enforce this through the BUG rating system (Backlight, Uplight, Glare) and cap correlated colour temperature — warmer ≤ 3000K (often ≤ 2700K near habitats) reduces blue-light skyglow and ecological impact. Design to the required BUG and CCT limits from the start; retrofitting shields and swapping to warmer sources after a complaint is expensive.
5. Checklist
- Set task lux + uniformity per application (car park, path, entrance)
- Specify IP65/IP66 and 10 kV surge for street/area
- Use full-cutoff fixtures to control glare and uplight
- Meet BUG ratings and any CCT cap (≤ 3000K typical)
- Add photocell/timeclock and dimming for off-peak hours