landscape lighting: playing with Japanese lanterns

Two cool outdoor projects recently came to my attention, both of which took a Japanese lantern and transformed it into something completely new.

Thanks goes to Juliane Evans for highlighting this first one on her blog. It's a Martha Stewart project, in which these light sculptures were created from bamboo poles, strings of white lights, and stacked Japanese paper lanterns. Placing them by the pool like this, however, adds a whole other dimension. Brilliant! In more way than one. :)

Photo courtesy of MarthaStewart.com.

This second project is a shed that was created by Barry Bless and Jennifer Watson on the grounds of their vacation home in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Amerherst, Virginia. They were inspired not only by the modern lines and luminous quality of their Rocio Romero kit home, but also by traditional Japanese paper lanterns. They used translucent fiberglass panels to create this effect. By day, sunlight filters in, providing natural lighting inside the shed. At night, flip a switch inside the house, and this utilitarian shed is transformed into a sculptural accent that lights up the landscape. Big thanks to our friend Leigh for sending Bob the link to Bless and Watson's "Luminhaus" website!

Night photos: Dwell. Daytime photo: Richmond Magazine.

Both of these beautiful projects are getting me excited for this October, when the third annual InLight Richmond will be held downtown, featuring temporary indoor and outdoor art installations -- all inspired by and/or utilizing light as the medium. Both of the above projects are reminiscent of some of the smaller-scale works I saw there last year. (To view images from last year, poke around the InLight website.)