ARTICLES Archives - Page 213 of 312

Fifteen Years After

It’s unlikely that anyone back in 1992 would have imagined that the daughter of fashion designer Calvin Klein would change the way we think of swimming pools. That might be a slight exaggeration, but to me there’s no question that Pools by Kelly Klein, first published by Rizzoli 15 years ago and re-released late in 2007, was unique at that time in treating pool design as a legitimate art form. In many ways, in fact, I think her book may well have ignited the design revolution that has unfolded in the years since it was first published. I didn’t run across this oversized volume until 1999, when I attended

With equal doses of patience and understanding, observes garden artist Rick Driemeyer, great watershapes and gardens can emerge from extended periods of close interaction between designers and their clients. A case in point is the project shared here, where long acquaintance with his clients’ wants and needs enabled him to transform a compact teahouse/pond/waterfall composition into a finely decorated, highly personalized sanctuary.

Garden Tea

It's rare in our fast-paced world when you get the chance to work closely with clients over an extended period of time – and in this case we took full advantage of the opportunity: All the way through the evolution of the project, the couple gave me voluminous information about what they wanted and enabled me not only to understand and deliver what they were after, but also allowed me in many instances to exceed their expectations. I had worked with him before on

Enduring Beauty

Last month, I entered into a discussion of the emergence of a whole range of beautiful finish materials that have helped (in my humble opinion) turn watershaping into an art form. My focus there was on glass and ceramic tile; this time, I want to turn the same sort of attention to plaster and exposed aggregates – huge additional factors in the industry’s ongoing creative momentum. Before I begin, let me draw an important distinction: The artistry in watershaping is not so much based on the types of materials we choose or how special or costly they might be; instead, it has everything to do with

Sustaining Quality

It seems that everyone’s talking about “sustainability” these days, with the usual thought being that, as exterior designers, good environmental stewardship must be one of our main missions. But what is sustainability? What do watershapers need to do to encompass this philosophy? As important, what does it mean to our clients, and where are they in all of this? According the numerous sources I’ve consulted, sustainability is defined as striving for the best outcome for both human and natural environments, now and well into the future. In other words, it’s about

Expanding the Circle

In my November 2007 column, I discussed the power of friendship and how it can enhance our professional and personal lives. Along the way, I used examples from my own career and kept the focus on a personal level. This time around, however, I’ll be broadening the focus and expanding the concept to cover cultural and even global relationships. One of my key points in November was that by surrounding yourself with a circle of diverse, passionate, knowledgeable and thoughtful friends, you

Dousing Disaster

For many people, the devastating wildfires that swept through southern California in October 2007 are just another memory, washed away by the tides of current events. But for those who lost their homes in places like Malibu, Lake Arrowhead and Rancho Bernardo and elsewhere, those horrifying blazes will be part of their daily lives for months and years to come as they struggle to

At the heart of almost every watershape system, says hydraulics expert Steve Gutai, is a motor that drives a pump of some kind. Understanding a few key points about that motor is essential if your goal is maximizing a watershape’s energy efficiency and ensuring its proper hydraulic performance, he adds, highlighting a connection that opens a key sequence of articles on equipment selection.

Motive Power

Designing watershapes of any sort is becoming more and more challenging every day. Where not all that long ago consumers were happy if a pool or spa or fountain or pond simply looked good and operated reliably, there's a new generation of consumers who are much more interested in how these vessels are built and, more specifically, in knowing about how energy efficient they are. This trend is being driven on the one hand by the inevitability of rising utility rates and on the other by legislation such as California's Appliance Efficiency Code (Title 20) - a rule that's attracting the attention of code writers across the country because of the overwhelming importance these days of reducing energy consumption. With that backdrop, this article takes a look at a watershape's main energy consumer and the most basic of all its

Watershape designer and installer Rick Pendleton is passionate about using watershapes and landscapes in executing designs uniquely inspired by given settings and the personalities of his clients. In the project covered here, for example, he took a cue or two from the homeowners, borrowed a motif he found in the home’s architecture and combined them with a top-flight approach to construction in delivering the unique look his clients craved.

Falling Arches

For me, hitting the high notes in watershaping and landscape design is a product of careful observation, boundless imagination and detailed visualization. These factors drive the design process, after which I transition into the more practical phases of the project with reliable engineering and quality construction. The early, creative phases can definitely be tricky, because they require many of my clients to take great leaps of faith, especially when what they're after is a highly customized environment - something truly unique. In those cases, we know that we at Artisan Home Resorts (San Jose, Calif.) are asking clients to visualize something nobody's ever seen before: No matter how well we represent our ideas on paper or on a computer screen, the outcome will, to a certain degree, remain an abstraction until the everything is finished and working. When everything finally comes together (as we believe it did in the project illustrated in this feature), a vision is realized and the payoff can be extremely rewarding, both for the clients and for those of us who worked hard to see the process through. Here as in few other projects we've done, however, even we weren't precisely sure how

Falling Arches

For me, hitting the high notes in watershaping and landscape design is a product of careful observation, boundless imagination and detailed visualization. These factors drive the design process, after which I transition into the more practical phases of the project with reliable engineering and quality construction. The early, creative phases can definitely be tricky, because they require many of my clients to take great leaps of faith, especially when what they're after is a highly customized environment - something truly unique. In those cases, we know that we at Artisan Home Resorts (San Jose, Calif.) are asking clients to visualize something nobody's ever seen before: No matter how well we represent our ideas on paper or on a computer screen, the outcome will, to a certain degree, remain an abstraction until the everything is finished and working. When everything finally comes together (as we believe it did in the project illustrated in this feature), a vision is realized and the payoff can be extremely rewarding, both for the clients and for those of us who worked hard to see the process through. Here as in few other projects we've done, however, even we weren't precisely sure how

Although there are still many watershapers who work primarily with pencil and paper to get their design ideas across, it’s increasingly a field in which computers are essential tools in communicating with clients. Here, designer David Peterson discusses the emerging need for standardization of the way watershapers work with computer systems to keep clients up to speed while interacting seamlessly with other designers and contractors as well.

Playing by Rules

The most important skill needed by any designer is the ability to communicate clearly. This skill takes many forms, from verbal descriptions, well-assembled photographs and material samples to graphical depictions of concepts, details, dimensioned layouts and other drawn elements. When a watershaper is pushing design limits, in fact, he or she is often called upon to use all of these communication tools to convey ideas and aspire to offer something unique. In recent years, computer-aided design (CAD) systems have become increasingly popular as a tool in preparing construction drawings. Combined with the designer's creativity, these programs assist greatly in the production of plans. Unfortunately, however, our usage of them varies greatly in style and content from project to project and designer to designer. Indeed, these variations can be so radical that some plans are not easily understood by other professionals; moreover, the exchange of electronic CAD files is not always as convenient or efficient as it should be. This is why a group of industry experts has banded together to create the National CAD Standard (NCS), which is the core subject of this brief series of articles. That effort, which has met