Aquatic Culture | Watershapes

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Photo courtesy Questar Pools & Spas, Escondido, Calif.
Photo courtesy H2Oarts, Santa Paula, Calif.
Photo courtesy Hess Landscape Architects, Lansdale, Pa.
Photo courtesy Design Ecology, Austin, Texas
Photo courtesy Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pa.
Photo courtesy Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.
Photo courtesy Rock Solid Tile, Calabasas, Calif.
Photo courtesy Hughes Water Gardens, Wilsonville, Ore.

Persuaded by the Past

Some watershapers see their work in primarily technical terms – as complex tasks to be completed efficiently and well. Others, notes watershaper and landscape artist Christopher Lines, see technical mastery as a starting point beyond which they pursue purely artistic impulses. He’s firmly in the latter camp, he adds, with a penchant for creating classically-inspired gardens that tantalize the senses and fire the imagination with echoes of eras long past.

The Perfect Perch

The homeowner saw his backyard as an incurable disaster, but Shane LeBlanc found great potential on its open slope -- as well as a golden opportunity to test out some unique design concepts he figured he could use in transforming the unadorned space into

Shared Vision

As his watershaping career has progressed, Dave Garton has learned the value of finding ways to help his clients fully express themselves. It makes business sense, he says, but it also leads to odd little challenges that have fostered the constant expans

Dressed for Success

Set deep in the mountains of South Korea, this golf course is a monumental achievement in land contouring and water management. In his concluding article about this enormous undertaking, Ken Alperstein covers what it took to go from compacted rubble to w

Room Additions

The clients wanted to add a pool to the existing features of their large backyard. Kurt Kraisinger was happy to oblige, but he had a grander vision for reorganizing their entire space around a core fire feature and had to figure out a way to persuade the

Augmenting Reality

Asked to beautify an unlovely, long-duration mess caused by a natural, spring-fed stream, Steve Sandalis knew from experience that working directly with Mother Nature is serious business. That's why he took a big step back and let the setting guide his e

Interior Splendor

Wrapping up his discussion of the restoration of the Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle, Matthew Reynolds covers the painstaking process of resurfacing the shell with new marble as an exact replica of the original and making ready for the reintroduction of 350

Carving in Jade

For more than 25 years, architect Nick Troubetzkoy has envisioned a uniquely natural resort on the island of St. Lucia: No telephones, no televisions, no clocks – just a complete separation from the workaday world in a setting of unmatched beauty. He’s

Cutting Edges

The pools at St. Lucia’s Jade Mountain are certainly among the most ambitious watershape compositions ever attempted. In all, the mountainside project encompasses 26 interwoven vanishing-edge vessels suspended on the side of an ultra-modern concrete structure, each one with its own shape and aesthetic scheme. As Skip Phillips explains here, it was a steep challenge – one exacerbated by a remote locale and a constantly evolving design program.

Planting Places

Back in October 2008, Brian Van Bower shared his thoughts on looking beyond the narrow boundaries of pools and spas to encompass the potential of the rest of the site -- especially in one key area.

Memory Lane

The last time he was in Pittsburgh, Jim McCloskey saw a dancing fountain performing where there had been nothing more than a gaping hole in the ground when he'd first seen PPG Plaza

Capturing a Gift from the Skies

The numbers are eye-popping: Just about one percent of all the water on Planet Earth exists as fresh water suitable for human consumption. And depending on where you live in the United States, writes Mike Farley, anywhere from a quarter to almost half of that precious resource is used for irrigation.

CRYSTAL FOUNTAINS VIDEO SHOWCASE

Click 'play' to watch the current showcase video

New Products at Watershapes.com

Water-Level Controller from Pentair

Pool/Spa Systems & Equipment
Product information from Pentair Aquatic Systems on IntelliLevel, a system for controlling water levels in pools and other watershapes.

Fountain Systems & Equipment
Product information from Great American Waterfall Company on Aqua Storm, a system for wet walls or rain curtains in either sheet or stream form.

Outdoor Living Systems & Accessories
Product information from Paloform on its Bol heavy-gauge fire pits made with Cor-Ten steel

Other Watershape Systems & Equipment
Product information from WhiteWater West on Life Floor, a thick, foam-rubber decking system for waterparks that minimizes the consequences of slip-and-fall incidents.

Outdoor Living Systems & Accessories
Product information from Zodiac Pool Systems on HydroCool LED pool/spa lights through the Jandy Pro Series.

Stone Forest Offers Portland-Style Basin

Fountain Systems & Equipment
Product information from Stone Forest on hand-carved stone tsukubai basins in beige granite

Unruly Times

WaterShapes World (blog)
For Jim McCloskey, the summer of 2018 featured way too many stories about people doing really dumb things around watershapes. Here's a sampling of what's been happening -- and some thoughts on the threat these incidents pose to the enjoyment of significa