ARTICLES Archives - Page 254 of 314

Boundless Expression

We've always based our work as tile artists on refusing to allow existing rules and conventions to get in the way: We push at all boundaries and always seek something more exciting to create. That undaunted spirit of breaking new ground started with my parents, who established Craig Bragdy Design Ltd. in Wales just after World War II. Jean and Rhys "Taffy" Powell met in art school, had four rowdy boys and started the business by producing decorative ceramic products - coffee and tea cups, dishes, salt and pepper sets and a host of other smallish daily items. Even then, they were swimming against the tide: In the postwar United Kingdom, most people were interested in purely practical products and certainly

Sealing the Deal

The latest generation of Las Vegas hotels and casinos offers an amazing showcase for pools, fountains and watershapes of every shape and size. In fact, for many such properties, the presence of these increasingly imaginative watershapes is crucial to defining their appeal for huge numbers of guests and visitors. As these properties and their watershapes have become more elaborate and unconventional, they've presented designers, engineers and builders with greater and greater technical challenges - many of them carried in the plain fact that water can inflict a great deal of damage on these facilities if it is not properly contained and controlled. In our end of the watershaping trades, the visual and sensory arms race has challenged the waterproofing industry to step up to the plate and manage the integrity of every nook and cranny of every vessel, be it wide or narrow, curved or straight, below-grade or

Choice Matters

For many clients, the decision to purchase a watershape represents the second or third largest expenditure they'll ever make. As a result, understanding the psychology that drives client decision-making is an issue that cuts very close to the heart of what we all do for a living. To gain a firmer grasp on what makes clients tick, I recently turned to Trading Up, an insightful book by Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske (Penguin Group, 2005). The 300-page text explores the issue of why people choose to spend more money in some areas of their lives while allocating less to others - a fascinating approach that sheds a great deal of light on the dynamics of making large financial decisions. The premise of Silverstein's and Fiske's discussion is that most people have an idiosyncratic curve of preferences when it comes to making significant purchasing decisions. Why, for example, will some people will set aside substantial resources to buy a Mercedes or Jaguar while spending (relatively) much less on

Miles of Tiles

I know I've quoted or paraphrased Ernest Hemingway on this point before, but it bears repeating once again: Anything that was ever any good, you pay for. I'd go so far to say I've based my entire business philosophy on that basic idea. For one thing, there's an essential truth to what he's saying. For another, I see its clear application to watershaping on a variety of levels - particularly when it comes to the materials we use in creating our "art." Indeed, a huge part of giving clients the unique elegance and beauty they so often crave involves understanding and appreciating

Transitions

In the October 2005 issue of WaterShapes, I discussed a project that had tested my abilities and helped me to grow as a landscape designer. To that point in my career, I had functioned mainly as a designer focused on planting design. It was quite a step for me to accept the greater responsibility that came with a project that put me in charge of work on the total environment - pool, spa, deck, outdoor amenities and artwork placement as well as the planting plan. I knew going in that project management is a challenge no matter the size or scale of the job. Coordinating various trades, anticipating schedules and materials needs, making on-site design decisions and covering all

Facing the Future

Robert Frost once wrote, "I took the road less traveled and that has made all the difference." As we approach the New Year, I can't think of a more fitting theme for the watershaping industry. If we consider where we were just ten years ago and compare that situation to the world in which we live and work today, it's clear that the industry as a whole has changed immeasurably - and, I think, for the good. I can say further and without fear of contradiction that those who have embraced the "road less traveled" and faced the future with creativity, hope and optimism have flourished, while those who have clung to the paradigms of the past are not so well positioned to

Growth Formulas

For all the beauty and creativity that characterize the finished watershapes we cover in our magazine, I often find just as much inspiration in the stories behind these polished works of art. Quite often, in fact, I perceive that these

Exploring the synergy among glass, light and water is what SWON Design is all about. From their roots as glass blowers and neon artists, the firm’s founders, Michael Batchelor and Andrey Berezowsky, have branched out to create elaborate, vivid sculptures for architectural and landscape settings that reflect their interest in developing shapes, colors and textures that both complement and accentuate the surroundings in which they appear.

Glass Works

All artists and designers have to come from somewhere, creatively speaking. In our case, we came to watershaping via the world of glass arts and crafts, a starting place that led us first to create unusual sculptures in glass and light - and then to carry our work out into landscapes and especially into settings that feature water. In collaborating mostly with architects and landscape architects and designers, we at SWON Design in Montreal have found what we believe to be an incredibly rich vein of aesthetic potential. Indeed, we have come through the years to recognize with greater and greater profundity that water

For more than 30 years, the watershapes and grotto at Playboy Mansion West have generated a mystique uniquely their own. Designed by Suzanne and Ron Dirsmith and installed along with the rest of the home’s interior and exterior environments, this amalgamation of stone, water and plants ushered in the era of naturalistic pools and has utterly fascinated generations of homeowners seeking their own slices of the good life.

The Birth of a Dream

It's speculated that the exterior spaces at Playboy Mansion West must be the most photographed in the world. That's hard to quantify, of course, but it's certainly safe to say that since construction began in the 1970s, the home of publisher Hugh Hefner and its famous swimming pool and grotto have been used ceaselessly to promote his unique lifestyle. Indeed, the residence has attained near-mythic status as the world's most elaborate adult playground. For about 20 years, we had

As the popularity of interactive watershapes continues to grow, more and more architects, aquatic designers, home and resort developers, city officials and others are recognizing their value to communities. Indeed, says Stephen Hamelin, founder of Vortex Aquatic Structures, working with these exciting manifestations of aquatic fun is a positive experience at every level, especially given the opportunities they offer to help children learn through play.

Forms of Fun

Fifteen years ago, aquatic play attractions were found mainly in commercial waterparks in the form of large, multi-level, themed structures. Some smaller elements were found in the shallow ends of swimming pools, but they were generally limited to a few play apparatuses such as water umbrellas. Much has changed in recent years, and aquatic play systems are now featured in a greater variety of settings including city parks, recreation centers, resorts and a range of other recreational spaces. This trend did not burst forth overnight: For more than ten years, our firm and others have been helping things along by focusing attention on the value of concepts related to zero-depth aquatic play. We at Vortex Aquatic Structures in Montreal, for example, have designed our "Splashpads" to bring the joy and recreational value of aquatic play to almost any space. Among our objectives is bringing a measure of the commercial waterpark experience to places such as neighborhood parks, housing developments, campgrounds and other facilities, thereby allowing everyone within a community to experience