AJ, Albertslund and Flindt Outdoor Lights: Where to Place Them

Outdoor light is judged in the dark, from the path, by someone trying to find a keyhole or a step. This guide covers where to mount a wall lamp by the door, how to space garden bollards along a path, and why light that only travels downward makes both jobs easier, using four Louis Poulsen designs as worked examples.

Start with direction: light the ground, not the eyes

The most common mistake outside is a bare, bright source at eye level. It dazzles anyone walking towards the house and makes the garden beyond look darker than it is. All four fixtures here are built to avoid that. Each hides its source behind a shade, a ring or a carved opening, and sends the light down onto the surfaces you actually need to see: the threshold, the steps, the edge of the path.

That shared principle is what makes them easy to place. Because the light falls in a pool rather than spreading in every direction, you can plan an entrance or a path as a series of pools, deciding where each one should land and how much darkness to leave between them.

Wall lamps by the door: mounting height and pairs

A wall lamp beside an entrance has two tasks: show the face of the person at the door and light the step in front of it. The usual starting point is roughly head height beside the frame, with the shade sitting above eye level so that anyone approaching sees the closed side of the fixture rather than the source. The aim: high enough to stay out of the line of sight, low enough that the pool still reaches the step.

The AJ 50 Outdoor Wall Lamp is the most direct answer to this. Louis Poulsen launched it in 2010 for the 50th anniversary of Arne Jacobsen's AJ family, taking the angled, asymmetric shade he drew for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen and re-engineering it outdoors around a built-in LED behind frosted glass. The die-cast aluminium shade is painted white inside, so the light is reflected softly downward. It measures 349 mm wide, 248 mm high and 160 mm deep, weighs 4.0–4.2 kg, and comes in white, black or aluminium colour texture. It is rated IP65, with a 7.6 W, 3000 K LED.

The Albertslund Outdoor Wall Lamp works differently. Jens Møller-Jensen designed the Albertslund family in 1963 for the planned suburb of the same name, and the wall version keeps the horizontal Saturn ring, which reflects light downward while letting a little slip past to show the fixture itself. The short arm version measures 415 x 220 x 270 mm and weighs 4.8–7.0 kg depending on finish; the long arm is 515 mm wide and 5.0–7.1 kg. It takes an E27 bulb (max 100 W, bulb not included) and is rated IP44, so an entrance, balcony or covered passage suits it well. Grey, white and galvanised are the finishes.

One lamp on the handle side of the door is enough for most houses. A pair, one each side of the frame, gives a calm, symmetrical front and evens out shadows on the face of a visitor. The AJ 50 is the more compact choice for a narrow porch, where its 160 mm depth keeps it close to the wall; the Albertslund, with its arm, stands further out and throws a broader pool across brick or render.

Bollards along a path: spacing and rhythm

Bollards do the work that wall lamps cannot reach: the length of a front path, a step down to the lawn, the edge of a terrace. The right distance depends on how wide each pool is and how much continuous light you want. Two approaches cover most gardens.

• Overlapping pools for steps, changes of level and anywhere people need to see their feet. Place the bollards close enough that the edges of the pools meet.
• Stepping-stone pools for a level path. Leave a short stretch of soft darkness between each pool, so the path reads as a gentle sequence of lit points rather than a runway.

Before deciding, test it at night. Lay the bollards on the ground in their intended positions, switch them on and walk the path from the gate.

Keep bollards to one side of a path rather than zigzagging between both. A single line looks deliberate, leaves the planted side dark and calm, and lets the light fall across the walking surface.

Choosing a bollard: Flindt or AJ

The Flindt Garden Bollard scales Christian Flindt's carved ellipse, first used on his 2017 bollard, down to residential size. Introduced in 2021 as part of Louis Poulsen's garden collection, the slender extruded aluminium post lets light wash down its own face and onto the ground, so it marks the route without glare or light spill. Because the post is only 50 mm wide, it nearly disappears into planting by day.

The AJ Garden Bollard carries Arne Jacobsen's angled AJ shade, created for the SAS Royal Hotel in 1957, into the garden. The tilted head throws light forward and down onto the path, and its black textured head with a white-painted interior gives it a stronger graphic presence. A row of two or three draws a quiet rhythm along a front path, and it pairs naturally with an AJ 50 on the wall by the door.

For height, the short versions suit paths and steps where the light should stay low; the long versions read better beside a terrace or a gate, where the bollard also needs to be seen as a marker. Mixing both heights works if each height has its own job.

Planning the cable run and the mounting

Both bollards share the same practical system, and it shapes your layout. Each comes with a 5 m enclosed cable and a choice of base, anchor or spike mounting. The spike version is plug and play, which makes it easy to try positions before committing. One external adapter powers up to six bollards, with a maximum of 30 m to the last one, so plan a run of up to six fixtures from a single point and group the rest around a second adapter. The adapter itself, like both wall lamps, is installed by a certified electrician.

Colour temperature is worth settling at the same time. Both bollards are offered at 2700 K or 3000 K, and the AJ 50 is 3000 K. If a wall lamp and a row of bollards are seen together from the gate, matching them avoids a visible shift in tone between door and path.

Putting a scheme together

A simple, complete front garden often needs no more than three decisions: one wall lamp or a pair by the door, a single line of bollards along the path, and one extra bollard where the path turns or steps down. Choose a family and keep to it. AJ 50 with AJ Garden Bollards gives one consistent Jacobsen silhouette from gate to door; the Albertslund with Flindt bollards pairs Danish civic modernism with a quieter contemporary post. For the story behind the AJ shape, read The AJ Lamps: Arne Jacobsen's Total Design for a Hotel, and see the full Louis Poulsen collection for the wider range indoors and out.