Ends and Beginnings

Eric Herman

If you’ll recall, I used this space last month to say farewell to David Tisherman’s “Details” column. His departure left us with a significant role to fill – especially given how provocative his column had been through the years.

As often happens when a key person departs an organization, we weighed the available options and, not to flatter David overmuch, decided that replacing a voice so singular would best be accomplished by bringing multiple replacements on board to fill the void on a rotating basis.

The result is that, in this issue, you’ll find the first installment of a new monthly column called “Currents” (click here). The debut is in the steady hands of long-time WaterShapes contributor Mark Holden, who uses the opportunity to pick up the discussion he began last year in his “Future Class” series of articles.

As previously established, Mark is in the process of assembling university-level course materials for landscape architects who want to learn something about watershaping. In this issue, he reports that, while his efforts and the forms they have taken have been constantly evolving through the past two academic years, he has managed to focus his work around a basic framework of topics he sees as needing coverage.

It’s a fascinating process to watch – and one I’ve witnessed at first hand by joining Mark and his students on a couple of occasions to see how things are coming along.

In upcoming issues, Mark with be joined as a regular “Currents” contributor by engineer David Peterson, who will carry on the discussion he began in WaterShapes late last year about computer-assisted design and CAD standards. Another participant in the rotation will be lighting specialist Mike Gambino, who will use the space to examine both the technologies and techniques involved in developing quality lighting programs.

We’ll start with this core group of three columnists, but don’t be surprised to find other voices jumping into the mix either regularly or occasionally. I must say that I like the flexibility this approach affords me: The “big idea” is to increase the variety of topics flowing through our column pages – and help us keep things fresh, useful and interesting in our feature pages as well.

To that end, I’d like to invite you to offer us your comments and ideas with respect to subjects you’d like to see covered – either as column topics or feature articles. My phone number is listed next to my name in the staff box on the right side of this page, or you can send an e-mail to [email protected]. All feedback will be greatly appreciated, so please don’t hesitate to speak up.

Our goal, as it has always been, is to propel our content to greater and greater heights so that when WaterShapes arrives in your mailbox, you’ll continue to enjoy and value a magazine that reflects the dynamism of the industry we not only cover, but also seek to help and improve.

I trust you’ll find “Currents” to your liking – and I’m fully confident you’ll let us know what you think about it in the months and years to come!