ARTICLES Archives - Page 200 of 312

The Home Front

When I was a landscape architecture student, my coursework on residential landscape design wasn’t much to speak of – just one project in a single course. In those days, in fact, expressing any interest in residential spaces made you something of an outcast who really should have been thinking of loftier pursuits in civic, public and commercial design. Happily, I’ve been hearing from some younger landscape architects that the situation is now different – but that there’s still no real focus on residential design and a tremendous void when it comes to

Safety First

Last October, I had the pleasure of attending the American Society of Landscape Architects’ convention in Philadelphia. While there, I spent much of my time sitting in the WaterShapes booth in the exhibit hall and found myself fielding a surprising number of questions from landscape architects about aquatic safety – and particularly on the new federal regulations and standards having to do with entrapment prevention. At first, I thought it was strange that this was such a hot topic among landscape architects, who, as a rule, haven’t been

In Service of Trees

I recently read a short article in a construction magazine in which the writer described a fairly convoluted process by which he had “protected” a tree on the site where he was working. Basically, what he did was wrap the trunk in two-by-four studs, securing them in place vertically with some loops of metal strapping. In his estimation, this was just what he needed to keep the tree from being damaged by accidental equipment bumps – the boards, in effect, would suffer and the tree

Fulfilling Prophesies

If you’re paying even the slightest bit of attention to the world at large, you’ve probably heard more than you ever wanted to know about current economic conditions. Indeed, everything that has happened in the past year or so with both our national and the global economy has made it hard for some people to think optimistically about the future. These are perilous times, as some say, and in one way or another, I know we’re all being affected by what’s going on. But that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. In fact,

To Better Days!

I imagine that many of you said “good riddance” instead of “farewell” to 2008 – and that almost as many of you might want to skip right over the looming uncertainty of 2009 completely and head directly into 2010. Nobody can jump

Material Issues

At a meeting in Phoenix in August 2008, Kirk Butler of Cactus Stone & Tile described watershape designers and builders as practitioners of "the science of selection" when it comes to deciding which products and materials to use in their projects. His observation immediately rang bells for me: At that point late in the summer, we

Material Issues

At a meeting in Phoenix in August 2008, Kirk Butler of Cactus Stone & Tile described watershape designers and builders as practitioners of "the science of selection" when it comes to deciding which products and materials to use in their projects. His observation immediately rang bells for me: At that point late in the summer, we

From time to time, says David Tisherman, you run into a design in which ‘restraint’ is the watchword. That was certainly true in this project, where he found an elegant English manor home and has given it a pool that looks as though it’s been there for a hundred years. Far less restrained, however, is the structure that holds the watershape in place – and does so without applying any extra pressure to a huge retaining wall that stands just a few feet away.

Elegant Intentions

Sometimes, the main idea that will drive a design jumps to mind as soon as you see the site. That was the case with the project covered here: When I pulled up to the gate of the property - high in the affluent hills of Bel Air, Calif. - what I found wasn't a big, showy home of the sort that have increasingly come to characterize the neighborhood; instead, what I saw was a place defined by subtlety and elegance. It all started with the gate's beautiful brick pilaster, beyond which I could just glimpse a large, lovely home with the distinctive architecture of an English manor house. Even though I hadn't met the clients yet or seen the entire job site, I was already convinced that the project would be

Elegant Intentions

Sometimes, the main idea that will drive a design jumps to mind as soon as you see the site. That was the case with the project covered here: When I pulled up to the gate of the property - high in the affluent hills of Bel Air, Calif. - what I found wasn't a big, showy home of the sort that have increasingly come to characterize the neighborhood; instead, what I saw was a place defined by subtlety and elegance. It all started with the gate's beautiful brick pilaster, beyond which I could just glimpse a large, lovely home with the distinctive architecture of an English manor house. Even though I hadn't met the clients yet or seen the entire job site, I was already convinced that the project would be

The owners may have named the property ‘The Bait Shack’ as a humorous means of conveying their love of all things oceanic, but the quirky name does little to mask the luxury embodied by their oceanfront estate. Designed and built as a complete, top-to-bottom, turnkey project by D’Ascanio Brothers and the staff at D’Asign Source, this home and its surroundings stand among the firm’s most comprehensive and elaborate efforts to date.

Latitude for Attitude

Unlike most companies that become deeply involved in exterior environments, we at D'Asign Source of Marathon, Fla., are also happy to get involved in designing and building everything else associated with a given property. When asked by our clients to do so, we tackle it all, from designing and engineering a home and taking care of all the licensing and construction, to furnishing the interiors and providing luxurious details inside and out. And when we're done, we'll happily service