ARTICLES Archives - Page 198 of 312

In this new article series, watershaper Paolo Benedetti shares years of experience in providing clients with custom details and, as the series title suggests, offering solutions that can be applied in the field to carry them off. This time, it’s all about isolation and crack-control joints and ways to avoid making aesthetic sacrifices in the installation of stone coping and deck veneers atop them.

Expansive Tendencies

Oftentimes, I end up wanting to use irregularly shaped or large, dimensional stones as a coping for my clients’ pools and as a veneer in finishing their decks. I know in doing so, of course, that the deck and its stone veneer must be isolated from the pool structure and the coping. I also know, of course, that random or dimensional stone generally doesn’t conveniently follow the isolation joint around the back edge of the bond beam. Nor, for that matter, will the stone pieces used in the deck align with

In working to infuse his projects with sensitivity and passion, Salt Lake City-based landscape designer Rick Laughlin draws on a close observation of nature, a passion for the fine arts and the work of the masters of landscape architecture and watershaping. In addition, he says, his personal history fuels his work – an perspective he illustrates with a pair of projects that reflect his particular love of Japanese gardens.

Echoes of Influence

I’ve always believed that creativity is a direct result of our ability to embrace the ways we are influenced by others. In my case, I grew up in Virginia in a family deeply involved in the art of landscaping. My grandmother was a master gardener who had an amazing ability to craft beautiful outdoor spaces – a skill and affinity she passed down to my father, who shared it in turn with my mother. In addition, I had an uncle who ran a spectacular nursery we’d visit several times each year. It’s no exaggeration to say

Trust Matters

I’ve spent some time in the past couple months looking for a good book about trust. I ran into some stinkers along the way, with many of them impressing me with how boring and preachy they could be. But I never had that kind of reaction to The Little Teal Book of Trust by Jeffrey Gitomer (Pearson Education, 2008): I’m a big fan of his (you may recall that I wrote about his Little Red Book of Selling in March 2008) and have always liked the way he manages to

Speaking the Language

As is true of many business sectors, the architecture, engineering and construction industry (commonly and conveniently abbreviated as A/E/C) has its own language – and the construction documents generated by those professionals (watershapers very definitely included) are the medium through which everyone communicates. The challenge for watershapers is that we’ve come to the table a bit later than

Getting Better

If you’ve ever spent time in the hospital, you’re probably like me in having done your best to forget the experience. Not only were you recovering from some sort of serious injury or illness (or visiting a loved one who was), but you also had to endure the process in an environment that wasn’t quite hospitable. Most likely the room you or your loved one occupied was filled by an adjustable bed surrounded by beeping instruments. The walls were putty-white and scuffed, a couple of cellblock-like doors led to the bathroom and hallway – and a worn-out television hung questionably above the bed, threatening to

Moving in Miniature

One of the clearest trends I’ve seen in watershaping through the past few years involves the use of water in the front spaces of properties, usually along a driveway or close to the main entrance. It’s something I’ve noticed on both the residential and commercial sides of the business, and these projects really do seem to be gaining traction as more time passes. In some cases, they might be the only watershape you’ll find on site. In others, they introduce a presence of water to be echoed

Direct Access

More than ever, the Internet is shaping the way we communicate and run our businesses. As I’ve mentioned previously, this why we’ve been working for a year now to enhance watershapes.com, backing the magazine up with resources and features designed to give you

Among all of David Tisherman’s many projects, this one carried him about as far as it could beyond his usual role as a watershaper: Not only did he design and install an impressive pool, but he also partnered in building the house that went along with it. Working in a rich color palette and soaring, eclectic architecture, he crafted a masterpiece of form and reflection and made the house seem to float on the watershape that embraces it.

House Work

There’s no substitute for working closely with clients. I typically spend many hours conversing with them, discussing everything from their travels and artistic interests to the specifics of the project at hand. It’s the only way I know of to ensure that I’m following the best path in developing a design to meet their needs. That approach was taken to something of an extreme in the project pictured here: Not only did I devise the outdoor spaces, including a large swimming pool and a host of other exterior features, but I also was extensively involved in building the house itself. It was an exciting process for me, one that yielded positive outcomes and that, to this day, is still one of my favorites. Interestingly, however, my association with these wonderful clients actually began a couple years before this project commenced – an encounter that resulted in no work for me at all and also

Level Fun

Oregon watershaper Giorgos Eptaimeros has developed a reputation for providing his clients with the full range of exciting aquatic experiences. Always on the lookout for new options to offer and, more specifically, for ways to bring popular commercial- and waterpark-type features to his residential projects, he recently turned to a leaping-jet/splash-pad kit to bring a dynamic backyard play feature to a distinctly mid-range project. When I emigrated from Greece to the United States nearly 20 years ago, I already had more than a decade of commercial project management experience under my belt. As is the case with

The Science of Selection

The availability of new and different materials has been a driving force behind the design revolution that has defined the watershaping industry for the past ten years. One key to that development, observes Kirk Butler of Cactus Stone & Tile, has been the willingness of suppliers to step into more progressive roles as purveyors of unique products that have blown the creative process wide open for watershape designers and builders – and their clients. In our business as a stone and tile supplier, we’ve often heard in the past 35 years that designers and contractors get tired of repetition: They come to us, they say, hoping to find things that inspire them to create projects that are new, unique and exciting. Frankly, we on the supply side are subject to the same sentiment: While we may be intimately familiar with materials our designers and builders have used over and over again and have no objection to working with the tried and true, we’re restless, too, and are always trying to find something new to bring to the table. Whether we’re working with a pool designer, a landscape architect, an interior designer, a home builder or even a homeowner, we believe everyone benefits from access to a wide array of quality products and materials. In our case at Cactus Stone & Tile (Phoenix, Ariz.), this means we literally travel the world to find and procure the widest possible range of hard-surface products, be it stone or tile. We beat the bushes across Europe and Asia and visit the far reaches of South America, dropping in on trade shows and fairs, introducing ourselves at quarries and processing facilities and doing whatever it takes to