ARTICLES Archives - Page 155 of 312

Coming Attractions

Through the past several weeks, I’ve been caught up in a whirlwind of conversations about ART – Artistic Resources & Training. It’s the new educational forum being built by Mark Holden and a collection of like-minded professionals (including David Tisherman, Kevin Fleming, Judith Corona and Larry Drasin, among many others) who want to kick the level of instruction and information now available to watershapers and environmental artists up to

Want to Avoid Getting ‘Hosed’?

There are all sorts of amenities associated with outdoor living that, taken together, conspire to create what I see as undesirable visual clutter. This is why, when I approach any backyard project, I take my time in sizing up my clients and doing all I can to figure out how they’ll be using the space. If it’s to be an active, family-oriented play/recreational space, for example, I’ll start thinking about

Working with Stone the Right Way

Before I get to the meat of this series on using stone in landscapes and as part of aquatic environments, I must address an important concept having to do with how people have built with stone, both historically and in the here and now. The vast majority of stone walls and fences you see today – whether they were built 700 years ago or 70 – were

It’s All About ART

Interview by Jim McCloskeyMark Holden smiles a lot these days, happy with the progress he, David Tisherman and a group of fellow instructors have made in the very short time they’ve been organizing a new educational program. That program, called Artistic Resources & Training – or ART for short – is a spinoff of his years of trying to make the study of watershapes part of the curriculum taught to students of landscape architecture in American universities. Holden is a perpetual-motion machine these days, pulling together

Test Your Knowledge #28

Oil Company Joins USA SwimmingFoundation for Water Safety Program

Ripples #39

Compiled and Edited by Lenny Giteck You’re a Hottie, Kate – but Please Curb the Pouting! A serious controversy has been raging

On the Flat and Shallow

I don’t remember exactly when or where I saw my first tanning shelf, but I recall being puzzled and even a bit put off by the concept. I have never been one to loll around my own backyard pool, basically because my fair skin takes a UV beating. (Actually, I’m just tired of having my dermatologist remind me that I’m paying the piper for

Riding a Wave

So far in my Travelogues, I have always reported on watershapes I’ve seen with my own eyes – but every rule needs its exceptions, and this is one of those cases. Many years ago, I became aware of Santiago Calatrava’s extraordinary bridges – structures so far removed from historical precedent and any sense of the ordinary that

Cool Sensations

As I’ve emphasized so far in this series on the art of concealment, it is my firm belief that, as a designer and/or builder, you must pay attention to detail if your goal is to reduce visual clutter and thereby please your clients. In my own projects, I am so accustomed to pushing past so many aesthetic obstacles that it’s become second nature to me. As a result, whenever the need arises to install, say, a junction box or a deck drain or a cleanout, I have

Making the Most of Stone

Stone. Rock. Boulder. Just the sounds of those words imply strength – terse terms that audibly capture gravity when pronounced. You expect the material they describe to be dominating, and in fact it does command attention, demand recognition and push us toward respect. We want rock. We need rock. But why? Maybe it’s because