Setting Egos Aside

One of the themes I’ve covered repeatedly through the years has had to do with the need for all of us to become effective team players. True, there have been times when egos have gotten in the way and I’ve found myself in fairly dysfunctional groups, but for all that, I have to say that collaboration very often yields great results.

In fact, the vast majority of team projects in which I get involved these days are wonderful collaborations among clients, architects and general contractors as well as (depending on the project) interior designers, landscape architects, lighting designers and more. Of all those practitioners, landscape architects are typically those with whom I work most closely as a watershape designer, but I also exchange ideas with everyone else on these teams as well.

These days, we’re most often brought in by either the architect or, more often, the landscape architect – and we’re very fortunate that, in a number of cases, the landscape architects we work with get us involved in all of their projects that feature water. That’s great for us because it lets us focus on designing rather than marketing – and even better because some of the projects we’re called in on are truly awesome.

WHEN IT WORKS

As I’ve indicated, most of the time these collaborations yield terrific results. Recently, for example, we designed a set of watershapes for Pond Bay, a resort in the Bahamas – and actually ended up designing the project twice.

The first time around, we designed a pool area on the water. It was quite nice, we were paid for our work and everyone was happily awaiting construction. But before anything happened on site, the owners brought in a management firm and, somewhere along the line, we learned that the exterior areas were to be completely redesigned and that the architect wanted us to tackle the revisions.

This time around, there were many more players, including a landscape architect, an interior designer, an irrigation specialist and a firm that was to develop the outdoor sound system. Indeed, there were 18 or so of us around the table, and all sorts of ideas flowed back and forth. (Before the session ended, by the way, the landscape architect pulled me aside and mentioned how much he enjoys my columns in WaterShapes – as I see it, a wonderful foundation for a great collaboration!)

The new design includes a beautiful bar area accessed by a bridge crossing over a large pond at the access point to the outdoor area. There’s also an indoor/outdoor restaurant adjacent to another decorative waterfeature as well as a raised perimeter-overflow pool that appears to flow into a lower pool set right on the ocean.

Everyone was involved, everything was positive and ideas aimed at making the project better flowed constantly. At no point during our initial meeting or during the ensuing process (which involved a considerable number of e-mails) was there ever a hint of ego. And that was great, because we were all under tremendous pressure to deliver our plans within 30 days: Everyone just pulled together and the process clicked.

I came away from that experience thinking that I would more than welcome the opportunity to work with any of these professionals again in the future, and I’m reasonably confident that it will happen at some point, basically because we developed the sort of practical, professional camaraderie you don’t soon forget.

Things don’t always work out so positively, of course, which is why at this writing I’m living through the hell of a being part of a team that lacks any sense of cohesion or common purpose. It’s a nightmare, pure and simple: The clients are members of a well-known family, and they brought me into the project directly, adding me to a team that already included a general contractor, an architect and a landscape architecture firm, of which only the general contractor was familiar to me.

I won’t name names here, as it’s not my intention to tarnish anyone’s reputation, but I must reserve the privilege of saying that the landscape architects in this case have been particularly (and almost incredibly) difficult. It was clear from the start that they resented my participation and didn’t see any need for me to be there at all. Right away, in fact, I received a call warning me not to change anything they proposed and indicating in very clear terms that they would only be satisfied if I made no suggestions of any kind.

FORGING AHEAD

My staff and I work with swimming pools every day, and the homeowner had paid me good money to offer ideas that I thought would improve the project. It made no sense to me on any level that the landscape architects would categorically refuse to listen to (let alone consider) my suggestions. After all, what harm is there in entertaining different ideas?

But they stuck to their guns from wall to wall, and I have to say that the resulting design is nothing I’d ever want to see covered in WaterShapes. They were rude, which I guess I can handle, but I also see this as a complete injustice to the client.

To give just one example of what I mean, the landscape architects insisted on outfitting the pool with commercial-style tile gutters – a key, they said, to the sort of “retro” look they were after. I didn’t want to be stubborn, but as I saw a good reason why this is a retro (that is, no longer commonly used) look: It wasn’t all that great an approach back in the day, and as an industry we’ve found much better alternatives in the years since gutter were common.

The landscape architects also thought that the gutters would provide good handholds for children – which is true, but we could easily have accommodated that concern with any of a number of more aesthetically pleasing coping treatments. It was, in short, a dumb design detail that I would never use, given a choice. But I had none, so now the system meets all of the hydraulic requirements of (and expense related to) a full perimeter-overflow system with absolutely none of the good looks.

What’s worse is that the entire process has been a small war, with every aspect of the design becoming a silly point of contention. As I see it, it was all because the landscape architects couldn’t control their collective egos to the point where they would accept input, even from someone the client himself brought in to gain the advantage of a watershape specialist’s perspective.

And it’s not just landscape architects – not by a long shot. In fact, I’ve seen situations where the swimming pool contractors are the ones acting like prima donnas.

As my Genesis 3 colleague David Tisherman often points out, there are many pool builders who scoff at the “artiness” of the design process: They are so concerned about the technical side and construction details that they recoil at the mention of color theory, art history or creative materials selection. To a large extent, overcoming that tendency within the pool industry is exactly why Genesis 3 exists – and why this magazine is so important.

I am amazed and disappointed that, at this late date, there are still pool contractors who are stuck in the past, offering cookie cutter designs that provide clients with precious little by way of aesthetic value. The only explanation I can see is that these individuals can’t suppress their egos to the point where they can accept the need to learn a new trick or two.

My additional guess is that current economic conditions will drive many of these folks out of the marketplace, but I doubt we’ll ever truly be rid of that type of limited thinking.

ANOTHER DIRECTION

The plain fact is people on the swimming pool end of the watershaping industry stand to gain a great deal from collaborating with and paying attention to the work done by landscape architects, many of whom are truly accomplished artists.

I know I’ve learned a great deal from landscape architects such as Raymond Jungles, who does a lot of work in south Florida and the Caribbean and with whom I’ve crossed paths on a number of projects. Not only is he wildly creative and extremely knowledgeable, but he is also tremendously open to input from others.

When any watershaper has the chance to team up with designers of such high caliber, we should always view these situations as golden opportunities to develop our own design skills. After all, landscape architects have been schooled in design principles and practices and quite often approach the watershaping process with different and (often) more educated points of view than the typical pool designer or contractor.

As I see it, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with acknowledging that other people bring different skills and experience to the process: Just as many landscape architects do well by accepting input from smart swimming pool designers and contractors, we too should recognize the benefits of tapping into their acumen when such opportunities arise.

To show how well this can work, I’m currently working on a project that will be built on a small semi-private island in the Bahamas. In this case, the initial discussions on collaboration have been seamless and are a perfect example of how various areas of expertise can mesh.

In this case, before I was brought in the architect had designed a beautiful vanishing-edge pool with radii on each end where he located shallow lounging areas. In my discussions with the client, I suggested that the vanishing edge should extend all the way around the two ends and that the depth of the lounging areas should be set at six inches instead of a foot.

By then I was on a roll and also expressed the thought that a planter would be a nice transitional feature outside the catch basin: This way, the basin could be raised from about seven feet below the edge to about 30 inches – a safety measure that would, I opined, eliminate a risk of falling and also create a smoother visual transition when the pool was observed from below.

Then I suggested that the other edges should become a deck-level perimeter overflow feature, topping it all off with the thought that, given the fact that water is an extremely precious commodity for the island’s residents, it would be a good idea to establish the entire deck as water-harvesting area – and that all it would really entail was increasing the surge tank’s capacity so it could store rainwater that could then be used for the pool.

Those were some fairly significant changes, and I asked the homeowner if the architect might be bruised by such a pile of ideas. He assured me that, although the gentleman had an ego, he’d also known him to be highly susceptible to the charms of ideas that would make the project better.

A FINE EXAMPLE

By coincidence, I spoke with the architect just before sitting down to compose this column and used the opportunity to go over all of my suggestions with him. I started by explaining that my goal in all projects is to work with everyone involved to make the design as good as it possibly can be in both functional and aesthetic terms. He immediately indicated that he was also an advocate of team efforts and would be happy to run through my ideas, no problem.

Although we’re still in the midst of developing and refining the design, I’m confident that many of the features I’ve suggested will be included – and that, when it’s completed, this will almost certainly be a project I’ll proudly add to my portfolio and about which I will likely submit a feature article to WaterShapes. And when the time comes, you may rest assured I will be certain to credit the architect for his contributions.

The upshot is that everyone involved in projects such as these (and especially the homeowners) will benefit from thinking that’s open-minded and unaffected by ego. I’m not saying ego is a bad thing – it’s what keeps lots of designers going through thick and thin – but that it can become a problem if it gets in the way of a project’s optimal outcome.

Custom watershapes can be costly and often become major components of our clients’ homes and lifestyles. We need egos to have the self-confidence and self-assuredness required to make important design decisions, but we also need to be secure enough in our skills and humble enough in our mindsets to be receptive to input from others on design teams who have what it takes to help refine and polish ideas to a perfect luster.

When people who respect each other come together and get to work, then we all have the opportunity to create projects that are as good as they possibly can be.

Brian Van Bower runs Aquatic Consultants, a design firm based in Miami, Fla., and is a co-founder of the Genesis 3 Design Group; dedicated to top-of-the-line performance in aquatic design and construction, this organization conducts schools for like-minded pool designers and builders. He can be reached at [email protected].