ARTICLES Archives - Page 190 of 312

Electrolytic chemical generation has been used by various industries for more than a century, but it’s only recently that it has become familiar to watershapers, mainly in the form of saltwater chlorinating systems. Now, says watershaper/inventor Jeff Freeman, it’s time to take this technology to a new level, using its capacity to coax old chemical compounds into doing new tricks that meet a broad array of water-treatment challenges.

Elemental Finesse

{Multithumb} Ever since people decided to contain and control water for recreational and decorative uses, there have been competing ideas about how to treat it so that it remains safe for human contact. That environment has become even more intense in recent years, as questions and concerns have arisen about the continuing use of traditional chlorine chemistry to get this important job done. Today, for example, we hear a lot about “natural pools” – systems using plant material to absorb the nutrients that feed algae and bacteria. There’s also ozone technology, which needs to be combined with stabilized halogen to treat water effectively. Then there are copper/silver ionization systems and their cousins, the saltwater chlorinators, which have taken root and gained support in many quarters. My career working with alternative sanitizers began a few decades ago. About three years ago, my firm – Fluid Logics of Upland, Calif. – entered this arena with the thought in mind that the watershaping industry needed to take a broader view of the last of those alternatives, digging back through the 100-year history of electrolytic chemical generation and expanding the capacity of these systems to oxidize organic compounds and sanitize the water. For several years before then, I had

Among all of the elements defining superior naturalistic watershapes, accomplished pond/stream specialists know that edge treatments are generally what separates great work from the ordinary. Here, watershaper Steve Sandalis highlights these transitions, sharing techniques he uses to soften edges and create areas where grassy verges, plants, beaches and rocks combine to make impressions in various and seamlessly beautiful ways.

Softening Edges

We recently completed a project that truly thrilled a pair of well-traveled, highly educated clients: It was a large, complex waterfall-and-pond composition in the sloping backyard of an upscale home in an affluent southern California neighborhood. There were a number of reasons why the project worked so well, but if I had to break it down to one thing more than any other, it had to do with the range of edge treatments we used within the available space. On the side nearest the house, we established a clean lawn-meets-water detail – very disciplined in appearance and obviously man-made. Directly across the pond was a set of rugged waterfalls – much wilder and basically untamed. Bracketing those features, we filled shallow areas with emergent plants and hiding places for fish and frogs. It was a well thought out plan, certainly right for the space. But I know for a fact that

There’s a place in the world, says veteran watershaper Pete Cattano, for relatively modest swimming pools. Using a recently completed ‘garden pool’ to illustrate that point, he describes how great clients, an integrated landscape design, professional cooperation and careful construction can come together to deliver the best of everything swimming pools have to offer, even in a situation where the project’s scope and scale are quite down to earth.

Simple Green

Swimming pools don’t always need to be complex or innovative to be beautiful. In fact, I’d like to suggest that even the simplest of design programs, when handled well by the watershaper, can lead to outstanding results. The reasons are obvious and well known: With water, we manage the world’s most beautiful and alluring design material. If we do a good job, put that water in the right place and build our structures well, the potential for achieving gorgeous results is almost always within reach and we organize reflections, flows, sounds, hardscape and plants. If all of those elements are in control and integrated into the same thoughtful program, in other words, even the most basic of projects can be so aesthetically on target that it will elicit strong emotional responses. All of these factors were in play with the small pool discussed here: With just 800 square feet of surface area, it sits in the front yard of a modest but attractive home in the Five Towns area of New York’s Long Island and is distinguished by

Inflows and Outflows

In most watershapes, we circulate and treat water through use of pumps and filters – and although we still don’t think about it much these days, we do so because fresh water is in precariously short supply and we can’t simply fill and dump it as we please. Yet even a perfect watershape – that is, one devoid of leaks, never subject to splash-out and never in need of backwashing – occasionally requires the addition of new water if only because evaporation will carry it away, bit by bit. In fact, there’s no way to cut Mother Nature out of her share, or to keep her from

Up on the Roof

Like it or not, we’re all on the front lines of the environmental sustainability movement. In fact, as shapers of water and land, few are in better positions than we are to make a difference, with many of us frequently working alongside architects, municipal officials and developers and being asked to design and implement green approaches that minimize a given project’s effects on its surrounding environs. As I see it, this offers us not only a golden opportunity to shape the future of land development and architecture, but also to rise from

Deficits of Trust

The Harvard Business Review recently published results of an interesting survey: Overall, they said, some 75 percent of those contacted reported diminishing trust in U.S. business managers and their companies; moreover, their faith in educational institutions, product suppliers and government is on the decline as well – but not to quite such an extent. It all seems gloomy and pessimistic, but I couldn’t be surprised by the findings. In fact, I can

Reasons to Believe

Although I’ve done it on a couple occasions through the past 11 years, I’ve always had trouble writing columns that welcome a New Year – even when times have been good and there have been reasons aplenty for lavish doses of optimism. I just don’t like clichés, and they’re amazingly difficult to avoid when you look to the future with

An Enduring Resource

Soon after we published our first-ever Resource Directory last December, we received this comment from a reader: “Thanks for pulling this together. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to work with the big, fat buyer’s guides other magazines put together and sift through all the stuff I really don’t care about to dig out a few important nuggets. I do have a complaint, however: Why’d you take so long to

It’s an unusually large lap pool in a prime spot in the client’s yard, notes watershape artist David Tisherman, but there was no desire to have it dominate the space. That’s why he worked with simple geometry, recessed the pool below the prevailing grade, organized a muted color palette and used warm, beautiful stone: It was all about having the watershape blend into its environment when it wasn’t being used by its avid swimmer/owner.

Linear Grace

As a rule, I avoid working for contractors: I’ve found that far too many of them spend so much time worrying about the bottom line that they lose sight of the fact that their clients want quality rather than compromises. I’ve also found that their general caution is often at its worst when it comes to watershapes: Even though these structures may be key components of the overall project, they tend to come along late in the process and are all too often seen as places where corners can be cut to meet overall budget goals. Frankly, I’ve never liked being treated as a pawn or second-class citizen, so I avoid these situations like the plague. Instead, I typically work directly for homeowners and refuse to subordinate my part of a project to the whims of another contractor. Any worthwhile rule, however, has

When observed as it exists in nature, notes Sven Schunemann, water’s various forms and rhythms can be captured and reproduced by watershapers. He and other Flowforms sculptors have raised that bar, however, digging deep into water’s physical dynamics and developing precise, specialized water/ sculpture systems that are visually intriguing – and also lay claim to being a form of treatment that naturally enhances water’s capacity to nourish.

Forming Flows

I was out of a job in Gloucester, England, several years back when I came across a collection of wonderfully unusual sculptures that changed my life. These compositions, called Flowforms, were the work of British sculptor John Wilkes, an inspired artist who for most of his professional life has explored ways to use water’s nature and characteristics as his medium. I was immediately drawn to what I saw: I’d worked as an estate gardener before being trained as a sculptor at the St. Martin School of Art in London and had always had an interest in natural forms and all sorts of experimental media. I had also spent a good part of