Tunable White Lighting and New Control of Color are Transforming Outdoors

Story at a glance:

• A new Colorscaping system from WAC Lighting allows for nearly infinite color combinations.
• With the Colorscaping system and app, homeowners or installers can adjust lighting from their phones or tablets.
• WAC Lighting developed human-centric tunable white fixtures that replicate the natural light of the sun and benefits people’s health and well-being.

There’s no denying it; more of everything is happening outside. It’s not just dining al fresco. Many people are also aiming to work, study, and socialize outdoors as much as possible—and year-round.

“People are doing more things outside. Now we even have classrooms outside,” says Brian Vitale, a co-managing director at Gensler based in the Chicago office. “It’s no longer, ‘Here’s some outdoor space. Do with it what you want,’ but rather how can we tune these spaces so they can be programmable?”

From outdoor yoga at college campuses to workspaces where people meet and want to stay awhile, more people are demanding dedicated space beyond a bench outside. “Things have been magnified really since Covid,” Vitale says. “How do you design these spaces so they’re comfortable and inviting?”

Gensler knows lighting is a big part of the conversation. It can often make or break an environment. “It’s incredible what the right type of lighting does for these spaces. When you talk about technology, that might be the biggest leap we have made—the ability to light spaces properly with new technology, where people feel much more comfortable using them after hours. We talk about winter being cold, but it’s also short days, right? We want to make sure people feel safe in these spaces, and lighting is key to all of that.”

A good lighting designer can make lighting seamless, too, Vitale says, if that’s the goal. “When LED lights first came out they were really bright white; your kitchen looked like you could operate in it. The technology has come so far now it can be softer and feel much more flexible. In certain conditions you do want the bright light, but it’s much more flexible. The fact that you can gently illuminate a space and make people feel comfortable is incredibly important.”

Cutting-Edge Solutions

WAC Lighting knows firsthand the capabilities of lighting, having been in the industry for 40 years and watching it evolve up close as part of their own R&D efforts. For example, WAC Lighting developed human-centric tunable white fixtures that replicate the natural light of the sun, which benefits people’s health and well-being.

Most recently WAC unveiled its Colorscaping lighting system, which includes tunable white light as well as color changing illumination for landscaping. It’s the latest in a long line of indoor and outdoor lighting, smart ceiling fans, and more from WAC as well as its brand Modern Forms.

The new Colorscaping system takes lighting to the next level, says Todd Goers, an expert on landscape and outdoor lighting who works with WAC Lighting. In the past it was a big deal if a homeowner didn’t like the look of their lighting once installed; a contractor might have to go high up into a tree to change a fixture. With the Colorscaping system and app, homeowners or installers can adjust lighting from their phones or tablets. “Once those fixtures were installed in the past that’s what you had. It was a big deal for a homeowner to say, ‘I don’t like the look of this,” Goers says. “It took a lot of work to go back and make a change. Now with the introduction of Colorscaping it’s as easy as clicking a few buttons then saying, ‘How do you like it now?’”

Colorscaping also makes the whole moonlighting process safer (less climbing), quicker, and more affordable, as time is money, he says. “This product has really given us a lot of flexibility and control, which really was not there before we brought this product to the market,” Goers says.

Design Flexibility

Tunable white lighting and new control of color are transforming outdoor spaces. Photo courtesy of WAC Lighting

The person with the app has more control—whether it’s a residential project or a commercial building owner. “Everybody can control lighting color schemes or light intensity when doing outdoor lighting,” says Tom Lillie, executive director for specification lighting for WAC Lighting. “Especially when you look at our Colorscaping product—it is like a blank canvas someone is painting. With color tunability we can make your landscape pop with white light ranging from warm 2700K to cool 6500 Kelvin. In addition, you can choose from over 16 million colors with our virtually unlimited color palette. You really can make the environment beautiful.”

The technology can be used in virtually any setting, from entertaining at home to setting school colors for an event at a university or making wedding colors feel even more special. “It’s something not everyone is going to have, so maybe it’s a little bit of vanity, too,” Goers says. “Like, ‘Hey, look what I can do with my lighting system.’”

While the colors are seemingly infinite, Goers imagines most of the time the Colorscaping line will be used in variations of white when at home. “I know there are a lot of contractors who are buying this product from us today who have no intention of moving the lights to color; they just want the tunable light aspect, which is interesting, being able to change that,” he says. “You can change every fixture to a different color temperature using the same app, or you can group them to have certain sets of fixtures doing the same thing. The possibilities are endless, and that makes it fun. You could dedicate your life to playing around with your lighting system.”

Trends Here to Stay

WAC Lighting developed human-centric tunable white fixtures that replicate the natural light of the sun and benefits people’s health and well-being. Photo courtesy of WAC Lighting

As many people continue to work at least some of the time at home, solutions like these as well as Modern Forms’ outdoor-rated ceiling fans make working outside a more comfortable option. “The people I’m talking to are sitting on their patios under the pergola, enjoying their home office,” Lillie says.

Home-like environments and natural materials are expected to continue to be in demand, too. People are blurring the line between indoors and out, Lillie says. WAC Lighting offers the full gamut of outdoor decorative and functional lighting to complement their indoor offerings, too, from sconces to bollards to post lights and more. Both inside and out people are looking for more organic materials in their designs—like wood, stone, and even crystal, Lillie says. WAC is developing new outdoor products, including concrete sconces, to meet this demand and add to their already existing line of biophilic-inspired offerings like wood sconces.

WAC Lighting is also committed to using sustainable materials in its designs with no waste at its dedicated factories.

Quality Control

When WAC Lighting first entered the landscape space nearly a decade ago and revealed its adjustable, tunable products, they were unique compared to anything else on the market, Goers says. He remembers showing people how they could adjust the beam angle and the brightness right at the fixture with a screwdriver; people loved it, but their first questions were often about cost.

“I think higher cost is one thing people think about our product line that is not true,” he says. “Our products are made at our dedicated factories, which only produce WAC’s products. A lot of people in the landscape lighting space do not have this luxury. They are going overseas and finding somebody to make products to their specifications, then paying that markup, which then gets another markup when sold to distributors.”

Lillie says many other lighting manufacturers buy product and private label it from the same factory so it goes out one door as company X and comes in another door as company Y. “Not only is price a big issue, but quality, control, and consistency when somebody is going overseas and buying product from who knows what company.”

WAC offers consistency, he says, as they use the same chips to make the same product each time. It’s the same light, with the same finish, and the same caliber, Lillie says. “We have control over the quality, and it is top-notch. I’ve been to the factory, and they really go that extra step. And if someone calls up with any issue, we have the support to handle it. We know our product because we’ve developed our product.”