Nestled between Boulder and Denver, Superior is a quintessential Colorado town—small in size but rich in character, natural beauty and outdoor recreation. With roots as a 19th century mining community, and reportedly named for the “superior” quality of its coal, the town has seen quite the transformation as it has become a burgeoning commercial and residential destination for the 21st century.

The most recent such transformation is the development of a master-planned downtown, at the heart of which is the Superior Town Center, a walkable, pedestrian-scale community core. To illuminate the new plazas, parks, promenades and transition spaces, lighting design and electrical engineering firm Clanton & Associates looked to Landscape Forms’ portfolio of high-performance, high-design lighting solutions. 

In addition to checking both the performance and aesthetics boxes like Roederer describes, Ashbery was especially suited to Superior Town Center for three reasons.  First was their modern performance combined with a traditional design language, reinforcing the town’s desire to invoke its hardworking mining heritage, while also craft a contemporary, upscale sense of place. “The lantern aspect of Ashbery is fairly traditional, but the luminaries are also so modern in their design and technical achievements—they’re very subtle, they have nice distributions, they’re very low-glare, and they’re Dark-Sky approved,” Roederer adds. 

Another valuable attribute of Ashbery was the latitude afforded by such a versatile lighting family. The luminaries needed to cover a range of settings—from roadway and residential, to park and plaza, to downtown commercial—as well as appropriately light the transition spaces in between. Clanton & Associates utilized the Ashbery line to full effect, specifying a range of area lights with 12’ and 16’ pole heights and single and dual luminaire heads all complemented by Ashbery’s path lights. 

The third, and possibly most subtle yet impactful feature of Ashbery was the option for a secondary LED element in the area light. This detail primarily serves an aesthetic purpose, offering an allusion to a gas lamp’s flame. However, Clanton & Associates found unique purpose for this otherwise understated option, using it to codify space throughout Superior Town Center. “One of the key things about Ashbery was this secondary decorative element, which we referred to as the ‘candle’,” Roederer says. “We actually used it as a subtle wayfinding detail, such that at the destinations, we did have the candle, whereas along side streets or secondary locations, we did not. You may not even be aware of it at first, but there is a difference, and I think it’s a really nice touch."