ARTICLES Archives - Page 256 of 312

As specialists in highly customized backyard environments, Scott Cohen and his staff at The Green Scene are known for adding elements of whimsy and fun to their work. Here, he guides us through three recent projects that turn thematically on his clients’ love of entertaining and desire to set a stage for sharing their good fortune with friends. As the tour demonstrates, they’ve found ways both bold and subtle to build a party atmosphere.

Libation Sensations

Most people I know have a favorite vacation spot, a favorite leisure-time activity and a favorite form of self-indulgence. In creating backyard environments for these folks, we as watershapers and landscape designers often find ourselves able to roll elements of one, two or all three of those "favorite things" up in a single package in ways that closely reflect our clients' passions and personalities. At my company, we strive to make a direct connection with those preferences by letting our prospective clients know that we want to enable them to vacation in their own backyards and come home to outdoor environments that epitomize the good life. In some cases, that means

The works of sculptor David Curt Morris often combine moving water with simple yet striking shapes in glass or metal. His meticulous compositions speak to observers by juxtaposing the kinetic potential of water against static structures – perhaps something as simple as water flowing over glass surfaces – to exploit what he calls the ‘colors’ of water in motion in a philosophy and a design approach that cuts to the essence of what watershaping is all about.

Water in Sculpture

I'm particularly interested in the behavior of water. To me as a sculptor, differing water flows and their textures are like "colors" to a painter: I find a color that holds meaning for me and then look for a structural form that can present it. To this extent, my artistic medium is the behavior of water and the means to make it behave. The sculpture in this case is water combined with a structure in steel, stone and equipment. The work is abstract: abstractions of feelings related to the movement of people, animals, fish and the flows of water in streams, rivers, rain - even the flow of numbers. As a result, I need metaphors and feelings to drive my creative expressions, then use water and other sculptural elements in much the same way a choreographer might use line and gesture to express a feeling or a composer will use chord changes and musical phrasing. My hope is that, in creating forms that are meaningful to me, other

The hills of Bel Air, Calif., are replete with steep slopes, lush greenery, winding streets and luxury estates – the perfect setting for one of Mario Abaldo’s elaborate naturalistic compositions in artificial rock and water. The work took months to complete, during which time he and his crews of artisans spent countless hours creating a pool and spa, streambeds, ponds, landscapes and a 40-foot waterfall set amid towering eucalyptus trees.

The Pleasure Garden

In designing and constructing naturalistic projects for residential clients, I keep two thoughts uppermost in mind: First, the only way to create a successful, natural-seeming illusion is to base my work on the observation and study of nature; second, the only way to build fun into such an environment is to fill it a child-like sense of wonder that draws old and young alike to the natural beauty. For the project pictured in these pages, those two thoughts were always front and center. The homeowner first contacted us about his desire to place a dramatic waterfall in front of some striking, 120-foot-tall eucalyptus trees. That vision soon expanded to include additional watershapes now woven through the majority of the steep, terraced, heavily wooded site. Some work had already started on a set of streams and a hillside pool by the time we became involved, but when the client became acquainted with our work and saw the sort of realistic, highly detailed projects we execute, he wanted us to pick up and take the entire project to completion. Built during the unusually wet winter southern California experienced this past year, the project was challenging in logistics, scope, variety and detail. Some of the practical challenges included hand-carrying 400-pound rock panels down 100 yards of steep, switch-back paths - and occasionally dodging rogue golf balls shanked over from the adjacent Bel Air Country Club. Despite such annoyances,

Minding Maintenance

In my work as a landscape architect and designer/builder of mostly residential swimming pools, I concede that I've never really given much thought to the subject of maintenance. Sure, the watershapes I've designed have proper hydraulic and circulation systems as well as correctly sized filtration systems, the proper number of skimmers and so forth, but beyond that, the specifics of swimming pool care have been beyond my concern. So I've let the terminology of water chemistry, for example, become a foreign language to me, and I've never known much about things like water testing, pH or sanitizer residuals. Through the years, however, I've come to believe that this is not a situation for a designer/builder in which ignorance is bliss. This is partly because I now work for a firm that runs a retail store with a service department and I interact with those folks on a regular basis; but it's also because more and more of my design/installation clients are asking me

Turkey Revisited

It's a truism that almost all contemporary works of art are derivative: The ideas have already been expressed in one way or another at some point in history, and all we can succeed in doing is to apply those enduring forms as creatively as we can. We can't invent the wheel, but we can redraw it, embellish it, place it in context and, in our own ways, improve upon it through the choices we make in using it. To be effective in that sort of downstream effort as watershapers, it is essential that we understand the nature and origins of the basic building blocks of aquatic design. For years, people have asked me where I get my ideas - pools raised out of the ground, the small spillways, the drain details, the modular deck treatments, the color usage and the use of reflection, to name just a few. "Through my design education" is the short answer, of course, but I can get more specific if we

On Contracts

It'd be great if we all lived in a world where a handshake was sufficient to seal a deal and no legal documents were needed. Unfortunately, however, we live in a society in which contracts are a necessity for most of us in business. When I first started out, I took on jobs without signed contracts, and for the first few years I didn't run into any problems. As I moved into higher-dollar projects, however, I developed a quick appreciation for the value of a contract when a client refused to pay for my services as we'd verbally agreed he would. Although I realize there are people out there who run strong, successful businesses without a need for contracts and rarely run into problems, for most of us I believe it is a critical component of every job. The purpose of any contract is to

Questionable Accolades

Most people I know enjoy being recognized for a job well done. From a simple pat on the back to the Nobel Prize, we get a sense of affirmation when our best efforts are seen and appreciated. Yes, there are those who see the work as its own reward. For most of us, however, recognition is a good thing, whether you prefer the warm-and-fuzzy side of being singled out for public praise or see the business advantage that comes along with recognition. Whether you're a film star brandishing an Oscar or a swimming pool contractor with an armload of design awards, there's an enhanced marketability that accrues to those with trophies on shelves and plaques on walls. For years, the pool/spa industry has

Cool Motifs

Watershapes of all kinds have come a long way in recent years, with elaborate, fully integrated and highly creative designs that were mostly unheard of in days gone by. For many of us, me included, exposure to "aquatic environments" (as they are now grandly known) began with the most familiar

Resplendent with large, classically styled homes, suburban Houston offers great surroundings for classic swimming-pool and garden designs. But this is also an area, says Stephen Wilson of Star Pools, where the ground is flat, the yards can be small and there’s not much by way of distant views. The result, he says, is that his company’s designs lean heavily on clean lines, rich materials and the understated watershapes he calls ‘inground sculptures.’

Classic Lines

It's often said nowadays that watershaping is the art of fitting our work into the surrounding environment. In many ways, what we do at Star Pools in Houston is a prime application of that powerful yet basic concept in the way we tackle both the opportunities and limitations of the residential settings we encounter. Houston is dotted by affluent neighborhoods teeming with homes in classic Mediterranean and Tuscan styles. Stately is a word often used to describe these homes, and because we've based our design philosophy firmly on the idea that the swimming pool and garden areas should look as though they were designed as part of the home itself, our work is largely a manifestation of

It’s unfortunate, but sometimes the concrete structures of watershapes will crack or fail in some other way. Determining the exact cause of such problems is the job of an expert who knows what to look for, says civil engineer Ron Lacher, who adds that avoiding trouble involves learning from one’s own past mistakes as well as the mistakes of others – and then applying that knowledge in ways that protect future concrete structures against failure.

When Pools Crack

Even though many swimming pools look similar in lots of fundamental ways, every one of them is actually quite unique. From soil and groundwater conditions or the specifics of their structural designs to the ways in which they have been installed, water-containing vessels of all shapes, types and sizes are, in fact, subject to a wide array of site- and workmanship-specific variables that can influence the way their concrete shells will perform through the years. When a watershape cracks, any number of things might have gone wrong. To the owner of a watershape, of course, such cracking is obviously a source of concern. The fix is often expensive, and it's not at all unusual for contractors to defend their work as a means of avoiding the necessity of paying to remedy the situation. This can leave the owner in a very difficult position in which experts must be called in to determine the true cause of the problem - and then he or she might be left alone to pressure the contractor who installed the vessel to take responsibility and