Author: Watson All-Lights in collaboration with Catapila Design

Part 1 — Driveways That Look Wider, Safer and More Considered

Good outdoor lighting starts long before you choose a fitting.

In well-designed New Zealand gardens, lighting is treated as part of the overall landscape design, not something added at the end when it’s hard to see where you’re walking. The most successful outdoor spaces consider how people move through them, how planting and hardscape interact, and how the space should feel — during the day and after dark.

This blog series looks at how landscape design principles and lighting design work together to create outdoor spaces that are practical, visually balanced, and enjoyable to use year-round.

In Part 1, we focus on one of the most overlooked areas of residential design:
the driveway.

Landscape Design First, Lighting Second (But Planned Together)

Landscape designers don’t start with lights — they start with space.

They ask:

• How do people arrive at the property?
• Where do vehicles and pedestrians move?
• Where are the boundaries, and how close are neighbours?
• What should feel open, and what should feel protected?

Lighting then supports those decisions. When lighting follows the landscape design, it feels calm and intentional. When it ignores it, spaces often feel harsh, narrow, or over-lit.

Driveways are a perfect example of this.

Why Driveways Often Feel Narrow (Even When They’re Not)

Many Kiwi homes have driveways constrained by:

• Boundary setbacks
• Fence lines
• Garages positioned close to the street
• Long, straight runs with little visual relief

Even when a driveway meets practical width requirements, it can feel tight, especially at night when poor lighting exaggerates edges and hard lines.

The goal isn’t to make the driveway physically wider, it’s to make it feel wider.

That’s where good landscape design and lighting come in.

Design Trick #1: Layered Planting to Create Visual Width

One of the most effective ways to visually widen a driveway is through the use of layered planting.

This means:

• Low planting closest to the driveway (grasses, groundcovers, low hedges)
• Higher planting set further back along the fence line (shrubs or hedging)

This creates foreground and background separation, which your eye reads as depth. Depth makes narrow spaces feel broader and more relaxed.

How lighting reinforces this

• Place bollards or low-level lights along the inner planting line
• Avoid lighting the fence directly

When the boundary stays softer and darker, it visually recedes — making the driveway feel wider.

Design Trick #2: Offset the Hard Edge

A hard, uninterrupted line running the length of a driveway exaggerates narrowness.

Instead of placing planting or lighting tight against the concrete edge:

• Offset it by 300–600mm
• Allow slight variation rather than a perfectly straight line

How lighting reinforces this

• Position bollards within the planting zone, not on the driveway edge
• Use fittings with downward, glare-controlled light output

This softens the transition between driveway and garden, especially at night.

Design Trick #3: Use Perspective to Your Advantage

Designers often use forced perspective to make spaces feel larger.

With driveways, this can be as subtle as:

• Slightly wider planting near the house
• Gradually narrowing planting or spacing toward the street

Your brain assumes parallel lines mean constant width.
When lines gently converge, the driveway feels longer and wider.

How lighting reinforces this

• Keep bollard spacing consistent, or subtly closer together toward the far end
• Avoid bright feature lighting at the street end, which pulls the eye forward too abruptly

Why Bollards Work So Well for Driveways

Bollards are one of the most effective driveway lighting tools because they:

• Define movement without flooding the space
• Create rhythm and visual flow
• Improve safety without glare

Rather than lighting the entire driveway like a car park, bollards allow the edges to be read clearly while keeping the centre calmer and less visually dominant.

Design rule:
More lights at lower output almost always look better than fewer, brighter fittings.

Keep the Centre Calm, Add Interest at the Edges

A common mistake is lighting the full width of the driveway evenly.

This tends to:

• Emphasise narrowness
• Increase glare
• Make the space feel harsher than necessary

Instead:

• Keep the centre of the driveway slightly softer
• Add visual interest along the edges using planting and low-level lighting
• Use spotlights or uplighters to highlight texture in plants or retaining walls rather than the concrete itself

Your eye is naturally drawn sideways to texture and contrast, which again makes the driveway feel wider.

Driveway Lighting Rules of Thumb (NZ Homes)

• Light edges, not boundaries
• Avoid washing light hard onto fences
• Use bollards inside planting, not on concrete edges
• Keep spacing consistent and restrained
• Let planting and lighting work together

Setting Up the Series

This driveway-focused approach is just one part of good outdoor lighting design.

In upcoming parts of this series, we’ll look at:

• Part 2: Garden paths and walkways
• Part 3: Feature trees and planting beds
• Part 4: Outdoor living and entertaining areas
• Part 5: Coastal gardens and exposed sites

Each area has its own design rules — and its own lighting solutions.

Recommended Spacing for Driveway bollards.

So, how many lights should you use along a driveway?

There isn’t a single number that works for every driveway, the right amount of lighting ultimately depends on the length, width, layout, and surrounding landscape. That said, there are a few key principles that apply to almost every residential driveway and will help you achieve a safe, comfortable, and well-balanced result.

Focus on consistency rather than full light overlap.
Residential driveways don’t need continuous or overlapping pools of light. Instead, aim for a consistent rhythm of illumination along the driveway that clearly defines the route without over-lighting it. Evenly spaced fittings with controlled output help avoid harsh contrasts while still allowing darker moments between lights, which feels calmer and more residential in character. The goal is clear visual guidance and comfort, not uniform brightness from end to end.

Keep colour temperature consistent.
This may sound obvious, but mixed colour temperatures are surprisingly common. Using different whites along a driveway disrupts visual continuity and can feel uncomfortable to the eye. Selecting fittings with the same colour temperature throughout creates a cohesive, calm, and intentional look.

Colour temperatures are a personal aesthetic preference.  Below are some examples of how different colour “white” colour spectrums look against plants.  When designing a pathway, consider the colour of the plants, fence and drive to see what works better.  Warmer colour temperatures ranging from 2700K – 3000K are typically used in this application in New Zealand, as it’s a softer light in the evening, and it makes the entrance to your home warm and welcoming.

Minimise glare for safety.
Glare is one of the most important considerations in driveway lighting. Lights should illuminate the path of travel, not shine directly into a driver’s eyes. When using bollard lights, choose fittings that control the light distribution and direct light downward onto the driveway surface. This ensures safe visibility while maintaining comfort for drivers, pedestrians, and nearby neighbours.

Bollard designs by Eurotech Lighting - view range

Placement Strategy — One Side? Both? Alternating?

Even Spacing Is Key

Driveways benefit from evening spacing, as mentioned above, however what does even really mean?

Typical Luminaire Driveway Placement Approaches

✔ One Side Only

Often used where lighting from the house or landscape covers the opposite side — e.g., when planting or wall lights illuminate the far edge.
Pros: Simpler layout, less installation cost.

✔ Both Sides, Symmetric

Especially effective in defined drives or where planting is heavier on both sides or when consistent definition of both edges is desired.
Pros: Strong visual “corridor” effect.

✔ Alternating or Offset

Not common as a stand-alone lighting strategy for simple driveways, but it can work in:

• Wider drives
• Drives with curves
• Feature lighting schemes where foliage or edging changes

Key principle: Spacing should look intentional and rhythmic, not random, whether on one side or both.

Final Thought

When driveways are designed with both landscape and lighting in mind, they stop feeling like service areas and start feeling like intentional arrivals.

Good lighting doesn’t make a driveway brighter.
It makes it feel better designed.