ARTICLES Archives - Page 135 of 315

The Illuminating Past

‘What’s the use of knowing about history?’ That’s the question Mark Holden asked to start his Currents column in the July 2008 issue. ‘For many of us, the answer to that question seems so obvious that it comes as a shock to find out just how many people in the watershaping and landscape fields don’t grasp the all-encompassing significance of our collective past – but it shouldn’t. ‘Using my own career as an example, . . . I confess that I waltzed through more than a few early years as an aspiring landscape architect and watershaper in blissful ignorance of the history of

Nature Enhanced

Of all the innovations related to pond technology, design and installation I’ve encountered in recent years, the most curious one to me has always been the “pondless waterfall.” In an industry where the highest aspiration is always toward achieving truly naturalistic results, having the water reach the bottom and percolate into a bed of stones rather than into a large, attractive pool of water leaves the designer or installer with the challenge of making the project work visually (and emotionally) in what can clearly be perceived as an artificial context. To overcome these perceptions,

Ripples #71

Compiled and written by Lenny Giteck Female Iranian’s Record Swim Goes Unrecognized

The Weirdest Idea Ever?

I was a bit startled to read that the University of Alabama intends to put a waterfall feature in its football team’s locker room. I’m as quick to advise anyone who will listen of the wisdom of being around moving water. It conditions the air, settles the nerves, eases the spirit, masks the world’s noises and offers at least a dozen additional benefits, so there’s a slippery logic to placing what’s being described as a small cascade in the space. But I have to wonder if

Avoiding Common Design Mistakes

Through all the years I’ve spent communicating with other pool designers and builders and in working directly for or consulting with clients, I’ve come across all sorts of design processes and decisions I’d classify as questionable (at best) or just plain wrong, foolish or even actionable (at worst). I’d originally listed them as ten common mistakes pool designers make (and should try to avoid), but a recent incident forced me to expand the list to cover

Pain in the Neck

About 18 months ago, I began (but after a while moved on from) a series of blogs about specific features and details of watershapes that I like or dislike. Other than my tendency to have a short attention span, I don’t know quite why I stopped writing those articles – and maybe I’ll get back to them someday in a systematic way. For right now, however, recent personal experience makes me write about one particular detail that has bothered me

Sliding into Backyard Waterparks, Part 2

The feature clients like most about custom pool slides – particularly those of the modular variety – is their tremendous flexibility: The average slide is about 15 feet long, but the sky truly is the limit, with elaborate installations stretching out across 30 or 40 feet in length. Slopes are generously variable as well, but there are obvious space considerations that come into play with larger-scale projects. A good rule of thumb for a desirable 20-degree slope: Every foot built up vertically generally requires about three feet of horizontal build-out. Obviously, this means that space availability is a major factor in slide design and construction. The great thing is, the basic procedures of slide installation do not vary much with size, so the process, once learned, is pretty straightforward and repeatable. Here, we’ll be focusing on what this means with

Upside-Down, Anyone?

I was the third of four McCloskey children to attend UCLA. All three of my sisters went there, two of them before me, one after. My middle sister, Susan, started in the fall of 1968, and I recall that there was quite a buzz about this weird new fountain that had just been commissioned on one of the campus’ many plazas: It was essentially upside-down, with water flowing from the edges toward an off-centered well, and it soon became known as the Inverted Fountain. I was 13 or 14 the first time I saw it. I’d gone with Susan to some on-campus event, and she gave me a brief tour of the place – including the plaza with the weird new fountain. At that point

A Pool-Lighting Primer

In far too many cases, lighting in and around backyard swimming pools is an afterthought – and sometimes I get the impression that there’s not much thought involved at all. As I see it, our clients deserve better than an easy, one-size-fits-all approach, and that’s the main reason I developed the brief video presentation linked below: I wanted to give homeowners a bit of information that would help them understand both the importance of good lighting and get them ready to discuss a variety of available design solutions. As I suggest in the video, the old-style, under-the-diving-board placement of a 500-watt incandescent bulb should never