ARTICLES Archives - Page 197 of 315

Malleable Permanence

It’s often hard to tell exactly when you begin a career as an artist. As children, both of us loved to play with clay – but that’s been true of countless other children the world over for untold generations. And it really was just fun for us, but now when we look back on those days, we also see that, even then, we’d started on the road to our current calling. It helped, of course, that we were raised in a family of artists. Both of our parents drew and painted, and our father, James Doolin, was respected in the art world. But it was our mother, Leslie Doolin, who started it all for us professionally when she decided to paint on tile: Eventually we joined her in what was to become

While focusing on naturalistic watershapes and finely crafted garden spaces, northern California’s Rick Driemeyer has developed an unusual specialty in creating environments that are safe and nurturing for a variety of animal species. This wrinkle, he says, allows him to explore his passion for nature, but it also informs his plant choices, determines the configurations of his watershapes and necessitates unusually close interaction with clients.

Safe Havens

It’s one of the unavoidable results of living in urban or suburban areas: People who dwell in mostly built environments feel cut off from nature. This, of course, is one of the reasons why ponds and streams have become so popular among so many homeowners. Adding spice to the sauce, I’ve found in recent years that this desire for naturalistic watershapes and elaborate gardens has also been attended by a desire on the parts of many of my clients to attract various forms of wildlife to participate in the setting. And it’s not just about fish in their ponds: With increasing frequency, my clients are also asking me to design and build spaces that will comfortably host a variety of creatures, including

Revealing Our Past

As someone who has spent years digging into the history of landscape and watershape design, it comes as something of a surprise to me that, alongside the luminaries who dominate discussions of the origins of familiar design approaches, motifs and styles, stands at least one practitioner who is not nearly as well known as

The beautiful pool complex seen here is among his crowning achievements, notes watershaper Randy Beard, representing something of a harmonic convergence among great clients, amazing architecture, a beautiful setting and top-notch design and construction teams – all gathered on a challenging hillside lot. The outcome, he says, is a deceptively simple watershape tucked neatly into a sublime environment.

One for the Sun

Sometimes watershaping is so much fun that it seems less like a job than a labor of love. That was absolutely the case with the watershape pictured here: I was given free rein to do exactly what I thought was needed in collaboration with great clients and a wonderful project team on a spectacular property. And as if that wasn’t good enough, we ran into virtually no problems along the way, even though we were working in a city sometimes known for setting obstacles in the way of ambitious designs. We at Pure Water Pools (Costa Mesa, Calif.) get involved in numerous custom projects every year, and the work just seems to get more creative, interesting and satisfying as we move along. I’m not willing to say we’ve peaked by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels good to think that this may well be

A Watershaping Reformation

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Those words (originally uttered by the fictional newsman Howard Beale, for those of you who remember the movie “Network”) reflected the frustration of a man overwhelmed by the forces that governed his working life and the society in which he lived. His declaration became the rallying cry of a movement that formed around his sense of outrage. I’m in that same sort of outraged mode right now and find myself on a similar quest for allies: I want the watershaping industry to change now and for the better, but

Grounded Value

In recent weeks, I’ve spent a good bit of time speaking to landscaping colleagues, garden clubs and symposium attendees about our general need to get smarter when it comes to how we think about landscapes. This is all part of my perpetual campaign to convince everyone to use the right plants in the right places in order to save water, labor and the fuels consumed in maintaining them. A big part of my pitch is one I’ve addressed before in this space – that is, I object to

Cascading Insights

This past April, my wife Gina and I spent two wonderful weeks in Hawaii. As is true of most of those who visit our 50th state, we were mainly there to relax and enjoy warm weather, tropical Pacific waters, breathtaking scenery, fine cuisine and laid-back Hawaiian culture. As has been the case for countless others who’ve been there, we were not disappointed: Hawaii is everything people have said it is and much, much more. As a watershape designer, I had the added pleasure of being able to study a huge number of waterfalls and streams that mark many of the islands’ most appealing landscapes, particularly on Maui and Kauai. It was one of those happy situations where

Natural Inspirations

Through the years, a number of key themes have almost effortlessly woven their ways into columns and features published in WaterShapes. Some of these include the value of design education, the significance of familiarity with art history, the importance of materials selections and the virtues of sound hydraulic design, to name just a few. Another theme that stands among the most common of all our overarching concepts has to do with

Under Control

Striving to avoid anything that might compromise the visual integrity of his projects, Paolo Benedetti is always on the lookout for ways to conceal drain heads, skimmer lids and other undesired intrusions. Here, he takes aim at spaside controls, describing a quick, effective means of removing them from view by hiding them in a niche topped by a lid made from the same material as the coping or decking that surrounds the spa. One of my pet peeves is

The restoration of historic watershapes can be both exciting and satisfying, says engineer and commercial pool specialist William N. Rowley. But, he adds quickly, it can also be incredibly challenging as well, raising a host of issues few watershapers ever confront in their careers. To highlight these considerations, he discusses three California properties he’s recently helped rejuvenate, defining what it took to restore them to their former glory.

Heritage Trails

The renovation and restoration of historic watershapes and their surroundings is a rather peculiar specialty. After all, such projects don’t come along very often and never amount to enough to be considered a primary business focus. Even so, whenever and wherever they present themselves, those who get involved must always be ready to meet sets of very specific and often unusual challenges. The fact that these sites are historic, for instance, means that they also tend to be old, so they almost invariably come with surprises with respect to how they were originally built, what sort of remodeling and repair work has been done through the years, how they’ve been maintained and, often, the degree to which they’ve suffered from neglect or even abuse. Original plans can be hard to come by, so from the start there’s a need for a good bit of educated guesswork and a fair measure of improvisation. On top of that, you also have to be prepared to deal with members of any number of community organizations and historical societies ( not to mention concerned citizens, donors and benefactors) – all of whom have