Something To Live By

Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability.

Flower A. Newhouse

Design Group of the Week, Alexon Design

At Alexon Design, we strongly feel that the consulting and design process is one of the most important aspects to achieving a successful landscaping project.  Our experience tells us that the fastest we can get on the same page, or connect, with our homeowners, the better the chance we have for success. We feel that we accomplish this best by asking good questions (sometimes hard questions) and receiving honest answers. We will answer your questions with honest answers as well. In any business, we know that honesty is the best way to start. We will not tell you what you want to hear just to get your business.

At Alexon Design, we have built a reputation of matchless designs, quality workmanship, with constant communication and supervision. We have developed this through working with "our" clients. Most of "our" clients are typically in their 2^nd to 4^th home. They have experienced landscaping before in Arizona, and are more concerned with getting a great product for an honest price, while enjoying the process.  We feel that the finished product is important, but history tells us that the overall experience is what influences our homeowner's to recommend us. Our homeowner's will feel that we have been creative, honest, and passionate towards their project.

Alexon Design is a smaller company by design. We have three crews, two construction superintendents, and three designers. By staying small, it allows us to be very competitive in our pricing. We are not the least expensive landscape company in the valley, but with projects that range from $20,000. - $80,000.00 we are absolutely the best value in town. We do smaller and larger projects as well, but that range is our true comfort zone. At Alexon Design, we also know that we are not the right fit for everyone. There are thousands of landscaping contractors in Arizona. And we persuade our clients to get other bids to compare, and to help them make their decision.  But, because of our reputation, we rarely go up against another contractor.

TJ Wilcoxson
Alexon Design & Landscaping, Owner
4157 E. Lexington Ave
Gilbert, AZ 85234
info@alexondesign.com
 

A Night Romance With Nature

Abstract
Night lighting brings about a new life to a lost space. Evening comes alive with introduced light; light for safety, security, traverse and aesthetic.  The clue is nature; the result is to extend into time, to enhance, to select space for purpose and to increase the aesthetic sense.  To design with the negative space (absence of light) and to create the positive space (a presence of light) is a design freedom for the garden designer, an amenity of visual art in the landscape.

Rod Tapp

Photo courtesy of Alexon Design

How involved should a customer or homeowner get when requesting a lighting design from a landscape lighting professional?

Nightscaping® recommends that only a few of the pertinent steps for function involve the homeowner or customer while the technical decisions be left to the professional.  Customers don't want to be overwhelmed with decisions that they either don't understand, or that they hired you to make.  Nightscaping® does not recommend that you sit down with your customer and open dozens of catalogs and ask them to pick out the fixtures that they want used on their lighting design as this will greatly compromise the end results.  Also it takes away from our motto of "See the effect, not the source".  Nightscaping® supports the lighting effect over the look of each and every fixture, most of which when done effectively will never be seen.  The following are 3 stages of the lighting design which the customer should be involved in in order to best customize a design.

• What Are Lighting Tasks - Discuss with customer the use of each space and how their uses are to be incorporated.  Which are primary spaces, secondary spaces, etc.
• How Do You Want To Light - Is the customer looking for a soft and subtle lighting design, a dramatic effect intended to evoke emotion, high intensity lighting for commercial use, etc?
• How Are The Lights To Be Controlled - Are the lights to be controlled all together, or do they need to be separated by zones?  Do they need to be switched inside a building?  
  

Once these 3 steps have been covered between the designer and customer, it is now time for the designer to finish the technical specifications required to complete the design and installation.   The following steps are:

• What Lamps Are Needed - Wattages, warm light versus white light, beam spread, and type of lamp need to be customized for the effect desired.
• What Size Transformer is Needed - Account for the amount of total wattage with allocation for future addition, as well as voltage drop.
• Design Cable Runs - Which fixtures are going to which Powercenter^(TM), and how many fixtures will be on each run?
• Choosing Correct Fixture - Each fixture and lamp needs to be spec'd for a specific effect.  If you're working with a homeowner you may want to involve them in choosing the pathlights, but otherwise as the professional you need to satisfy the first two steps previously discussed in order to fulfill the requests of the customer.
• Pricing Installations
• Installation Practices and Techniques

We hope this helps when structuring how to incorporate the design process with customer requests which initially can be overwhelming.

Outline written by:
Rob DiSchino

Photo courtesy of Alexon Design