ARTICLES Archives - Page 214 of 315

Forward Motion

There’s truth to the notion that the only thing that’s permanent in human endeavors is change. For the past seven years, I’ve had the privilege of sharing with you scores of details, insights, opinions and descriptions of the watershaping process, always hoping that, through words and images, I might influence the way some of you approach your work. It’s been a pleasure throughout, but the time has come for me to change things up, step aside and let other

Making Meadows

My part of New York hasn’t been hit too hard so far, but it seems these days as though much of the United States is in the throes of a sustained and (in places) severe drought. Even where I am, we’re in what the meteorologists are calling a “moderate” dry spell. This turn of events has made me determined to design landscapes requiring as little water as possible – one consequence being that I now do all I can to avoid using large expanses of

An Edgy Detail

It’s true for any watershaper: No matter how varied the work you do, it never hurts to be known for the ability to do something special – and for doing it exceptionally well. Through the years, for example, my firm has polished its ability to provide our clients with watershapes reflecting a wide variety of tastes, styles and features, but to an extent that sometimes surprises even me, we’re known among prospective clients for

All Good Things

It seems strange to write these words: In this issue, please find the last of David Tisherman’s “Details” columns. After seven years, he has decided that these monthly discussions have run their course and that it’s time to step aside. During those seven years, David has

Even for a watershaper who previously specialized in the largest, most complex sorts of commercial installations, the challenges James Atlas ran into with this multi-faceted residential project stretched him to his operational limits. Designed for an intensely creative client on a property in suburban Chicago, the work took more than five years to complete and grew to include a wildly elaborate palette of design elements and details.

Shell Games

It all started in 2002, when I was contacted by an architect who’d been retained to design a recreational complex for a huge estate in a wealthy Chicago suburb. I knew at the time that this would be big, but in those early days I had no clear idea exactly what it would ultimately entail. It’s a familiar story: Before the call came in, the homeowner had spoken with a number of pool-contracting firms in the area and had visited a number of projects that failed to impress her. The unusual thing is, at the time she called I was focused exclusively on pursuing large-scale commercial projects and waterparks and didn’t see anything even approaching a

When designed and installed properly, a landscape lighting system enables clients to enjoy their watershapes and landscapes well after the sun goes down. But achieving those satisfactory results, says lighting expert Mike Gambino, requires an understanding not only of the aesthetics of lighting design, but also an appreciation of the technology behind the beauty and an ability to lay components out in ways that electrically balance the system.

The Science of Lighting

As I see it, successful landscape lighting is a two-part process: First, the designer applies aesthetic principles that create the art, then he or she supports that artistic vision with scientific and technological savvy. One without the other doesn’t work: You can’t effectively practice the art until you’ve mastered the science. In my 17 years as a lighting designer, I’ve encountered lots of professionals who have the artistic part of the equation down pat but fall well short when it comes to working with electricity. The plain fact is, you can use the best fixtures in the world and understand the aesthetic issues like the back of your hand, but if you can’t consistently deliver power to those fixtures at correct, reliable voltages, the overall system will not perform properly and has the potential to become a maintenance nightmare. There’s no way a single article can bring anyone up to speed with all of the issues involved in the science lighting. Instead, my intention here is to introduce watershapers to a basic, commonsense approach to laying out low-voltage, halogen lighting systems, the goal being to enable you to converse intelligently and persuasively with lighting designers in the interest of helping

For the past 20 years, Toronto-based artist, scientist, inventor, professor and musician Steve Mann has been inventing, creating, building and playing what he calls ‘hydraulophones.’ Part fountain, part interactive waterfeature, part musical instrument and in all ways unusual, these systems enable adults, children and anyone who cares to give one a try the ability to manipulate the flow of water to create musical notes, harmonies and melodies.

Fluid Melodies: An Interview with Steve Mann

Not to diminish the painted ponies of The Wizard of Oz, but Steve Mann’s hydraulophones are horses of a different color. These watershapes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, from landmark centerpieces that have the sculptural grandeur of pipe organs all the way down to water-flutes that resemble brightly colored tadpoles. What’s most remarkable about these devices isn’t just their structural and artistic variety or the ways they look as visual art: It’s the sounds they make. At first, the natural comparison is to a pipe organ, but as you listen, a variety of shadings and other sonic reverberations emerge, slip and slide around you. What’s more, hydraulophones invite people to insert their fingers into the jetting water to shape the sound and squeeze out the shape of each note, and a variety of sonic textures are possible depending upon

Meets the Eyes

Although we might not commonly think of watershaping and exterior design in this way, a great many of the details we shape are designed to fool the eye or somehow create illusions. Consider the pools that are made to appear so natural that they don’t seem to have been man-made – or vanishing edges that conjure the impression that there’s no visual boundary between the surface of a swimming pool and a distant body of water. Those are two familiar tricks of the trade, but if you stop and think about it, there are many less-obvious examples as well: water flowing under a bridge that leads to nowhere; rocks half buried in the landscape to give the illusion that they are part of a subterranean geological formation; small bits of individual tile that come together to form a mosaic image; or modular walls that appear to float in space. In my own work, to add another example, I’ve started to be deliberate about

On the Verge

For the past year and more, we’ve worked our way step by step through the many processes involved in designing and installing quality residential watershapes, starting from the first contact with a prospective client and working our way through, in the last two months, to the application of well-selected interior finishes. A concern I’ve always had with this step-wise approach is that it makes too many of these operations seem as though they happen in isolation and that decisions about design and materials and finishing touches are made as

Beyond the Lawn

Last month, I discussed the benefits of sustainability and its place in landscape and watershape design. As I hope I conveyed, I think it is incumbent upon us as professionals to be responsible for our actions and constantly aware of the effects our work has on the environment, now and in the future. With the current severe drought desiccating the southeast, ongoing water problems in the west and increasing pressure on the water-supply infrastructure nationwide, it’s more important than ever that we