ARTICLES Archives - Page 245 of 315

At their best, say landscape artists and educators Cynthia and Gary Kinman, watershape and landscape design and construction are integrated reflections of the clients’ personalities and desires – and even their feelings about family and life itself. A case in point is the huge project profiled here, in which the pair used their technical skill, patience and personal ideals to transform a steep, forbidding hillside into a client-centered celebration.

Emotional Foundations

In most projects, great work requires the watershaper's personal understanding of who the clients really are, deep down. That doesn't mean we have to become our clients' best friends or marry into their families. Rather, creating watershapes at the highest level involves a different kind of relationship, one in which a shared vocabulary and common vision develop through discussions of water, stone, art, plants and the orchestration and staging of experiences that will occur in given spaces. Take the project covered here as an example: The scope of the work, an unlimited budget and a mandate for the highest possible levels of quality were enough on their own to force us to explore the limits of our skills and creativity. More important from our perspective, however, is that we

Through the past four decades, indoor and outdoor shopping malls have become dominant fixtures of the retail landscape. As the ‘mall phenomenon’ has matured and the number of facilities has risen, notes fountain expert Paul L’Heureux, so has the need to differentiate these properties to attract shoppers. In lots of cases, he says, the marks of distinction are watershapes of one sort or another – yet another creative outlet for imaginative designers.

Market Variations

The shopping mall as we know it first emerged in the United States in the 1960s and since then has become a dominating retail presence on both the urban and suburban scenes. They started out in larger cities but soon were found just about everywhere - indoors or outdoors, small and large, visually appealing and, well, less visually appealing. Some are organized around upscale shopping and recreational activities, others around discount centers and manufacturers' outlets. There are many that are filled with mom-and-pop boutiques, while a few are integrated with amusement parks. Whatever seems likely to succeed, mall developers have certainly been willing to give it a whirl. At their core, however, every mall of any type has the primary mission of pulling people together so they can spend money on all kinds of merchandise; all the entertainment, dining and socializing are, in other words, secondary activities. In this sense, today's retail forums are a modern version of marketplace traditions that reach back to ancient times and almost every human society - with lots of modern conveniences added for good measure. Today's malls, in fact, are

Among all of the popular architectural, landscape and watershaping styles, few have either the history or persistence of the Spanish Colonial Revival, which burst on the scene early in the 20th Century and continues to this day to define huge swaths of the contemporary suburban scene. Here, watershaper and design historian Mark Holden traces the style’s roots, defines its main features and explores its special relevance to watershapers.

Inside a Classic Style

The history of residential architecture took a real turn toward mass production with the emergence of the modern suburb early in the 20th Century. Especially in the years after World War II, middleclass families increasingly left urban congestion behind and headed for open outlying areas where developers were hard at work in preparation for their arrival. Some developers put distinct stylistic stamps on the neighborhoods and communities they were building. Among the most popular and recognizable of these styles was the Spanish Colonial Revival - a look that has special prominence on the West Coast but that has surfaced throughout the United States and in places as far flung as Europe and China. This style is so popular and has been used so much in so many variations that it is, these days, tough to nail down exactly what is or is not true to early Spanish Colonial motifs and ideas. That's not surprising, because this malleable style itself represents a cobbling together of ideas borrowed from Roman, Islamic and even Native American cultures. Those deep roots, coupled with a scattering of design focus that has blurred borders and distinctions and any sense of stylistic purity, makes it tough for 21st-century watershapers and other designers to

Class in the Tropics

I recently had the pleasure of taking a brief trip to Costa Rica. Beyond a little sightseeing and some rest and relaxation, my purpose was to consult with watershaper Juan Roca to determine the feasibility of creating planting plans to complement his incredible watershapes. I always do my homework when I travel to an unfamiliar area for business purposes, learning as much as I can ahead of time about local vegetation and climate. As a rule, I contact nurseries, check inventories, inquire about the possibilities of bringing in plants the nurseries may not already carry and in general try to figure out

Where the Waters Meet

I've been using the word "confluence" a lot lately - so often, in fact, that I decided to look it up to be sure that I wasn't misusing it in some way. According to Webster, the first definition of confluence is "a flowing together of two or more streams," with a second meaning of "a gathering, flowing, or meeting together at one juncture or point." To me, it's a perfect word to describe a trend that's redefining the watershaping industries - that is, a growing confluence between the pool/spa and pond/stream industries. Coming from the pool/spa side of the discussion, I can recall a time not very long ago when ponds and streams were only rarely if ever considered by anyone in my business. What could pools and spas possibly have in common with

Elemental Insights

Sometimes the simplest ideas shine the most brilliantly. Take water, for example: For all the complexity of "shaping" it with hydraulics, chemistry, structural engineering and dealing with the hard-line issues of technology and craft, it's the hypnotic, aesthetic and even spiritual qualities of the material that ultimately

The restoration of historic swimming pools is one of the most specialized of all watershaping activities, observes engineer and commercial pool designer William N. Rowley. It’s work that requires patience and technical prowess in addition to sensitivity to an old pools’ special needs – a process this veteran of several such projects defines through the ongoing story of the restoration of a southern California pool with a fabulous pedigree. (Photo courtesy Santa Monica Historical Society Museum/Bison Archives)

Restoring Waters Past

The history of modern swimming pools really dates back just a hundred years or so. Yes, there are examples of pools, baths and other watershapes from the distant past, but the swimming pool as we know it is something that truly emerged during the 20th Century, mostly after World War II. Before then, there were probably no more than 50,000 pools built in all of the United States - and most of those were seen as something quite special for their time. Nowadays, we're far enough into the development of "modern" swimming pools and other watershapes that a small number of "antique" pools have been declared historical landmarks, with those at Hearst Castle being

Scientist, artist, inventor and glass-tile manufacturer David Knox knows a lot about the nature of light and how it can be manipulated in the laboratory, in a factory or in a watershape. Here, he explores the subject of light’s physical nature, sharing his own experience in applying optical physics to glass-tile production and defining ways in which those same principles apply to the art of shaping water in harmony with the materials that contain it.

Light Dances

When asked what an "optical physicist" does, I sometimes reply that I'm basically a professional choreographer. What I choreograph, of course, is not lithe dancers in leotards and toe shoes, but rather the countless invisible balls of energy whose source, directly or indirectly, is our sun. That's a colorful description, but it accurately reflects the fact that I've spent my entire professional career coaxing, urging, manipulating and orchestrating light in a completely conscious manner with tools both simple and complex. Armed with a liberal arts education and majors in art history and American studies, I founded an industrial-laser company in 1983 and spent the next 18 years learning how to choreograph balls of energy into extremely precise line dances. There was nobody out there to teach us

Used for more than 30 years to treat watershapes hosting everything from killer whales and fish to penguins and people, ozone’s ability to kill harmful microbes, oxidize bodily wastes and get rid of other organic byproducts has made it the water treatment of choice for zoos, marine theme parks and aquariums as well as resorts. Here, Beth Hamil of DEL Ozone discusses what ozone does in these settings – and the technology used to deploy it.

Ozone Lairs

I may be revealing a professional bias here, but ozone is fascinating stuff. In nature, it's among the most essential chemicals on the planet, existing most prominently as a gaseous component of our upper atmosphere. Formed there by sunlight's reaction with atmospheric oxygen, it collectively constitutes the famous Ozone Layer that protects us from the sun's ultraviolet rays and is crucial to the very existence of life on earth. Closer to the ground, ozone is widely used across a broad spectrum of applications. It's well known in the pool and spa market as a water sanitizer, for example, either as a chlorine alternative or an adjunct. It's also widely used in food processing and municipal drinking and wastewater treatment systems and plays key roles in the production of cosmetics and with air freshening and purification systems. For all that, one of the most interesting applications of ozone-generating systems in the past 20 years - and the subject of this article - is the use of ozone in the life-support systems for aquatic animals held in captivity or for

Primitive Modern

I've always been conservative when it comes to guaranteeing my work, which is why I only offer a 300-year warranty on my sculptures. I'm fairly certain that the vast majority of my pieces will last well beyond that span, but there's always the possibility one might be consumed by a volcanic eruption, blown up in disaster of some sort or drowned when the ice caps melt and cover the land with water. Those sorts of cataclysms aside, it's hard to imagine that the massive pieces of stone I use to create what I call "primitive modern" art will be compromised by much of anything the environment or human beings can throw at them. Ultimately, that's one of the beauties of working in stone: It possesses a profound form of permanence - and there's a certain comfort that comes with knowing my work won't be blown away by wind, eroded by rain or damaged by extremes of heat or cold. And given the fact that these pieces are so darn heavy, it's safe to say that most people are going to think at least twice before trying to move or abscond with them. Beyond the personal guarantees and despite the fact I don't dwell on too much, working with stone also has a unique ability to connect me and my clients with both the very distant past and the far distant future. Human beings have been carving stone for thousands of years, and many of those works are still with us in extraordinarily representative shape. There's little doubt that those pieces