ARTICLES Archives - Page 278 of 314

Fair Exchange

During the five years I've been writing this column for WaterShapes, I've been asked by a number of people how I manage to find the time to write this column, make presentations at trade shows, teach at Genesis 3 schools and conduct my own design/consulting business. I get the distinct impression that these questions have much less to do with curiosity about the power of time management than with questions about why I'd even bother to extend my focus beyond my primary business of

Information Access

Coming up in New Orleans - first during the American Society of Landscape Architects' Expo (November 1-2) and later that same week at the International Pool & Spa Expo (November 5-6) - we'll be giving show attendees a special opportunity to

Proportional Response

One of the real tricks in any art form can be the challenge of exercising restraint. Bigger isn't always better, and both scale and size do matter. In other words, just because you can create something grand, it doesn't always mean that you should. This principle of proportionality has a sharp, specific meaning in the world of the custom watershaper, especially when clients ask for something that is oversized for the property or more elaborate than called for by the setting or surrounding architecture. We all know where it comes from: Clients have seen something they like, and it

Collegiate athletic centers are more significant than ever before because fitness and recreation are increasingly important components of modern students’ lifestyles, observe architects Edwin M. Wallover III and William R. B. McCullough. That trend, they add, drives a need to make such facilities as flexible as possible – which is just what they accomplished in designing and building Bucknell University’s spectacular new aquatic center.

Where the Bison Swim

The Arthur D. Kinney Natatorium was designed with a practical mission in mind: From the outset, the facility was intended to provide long-term performance, outstanding aesthetics, ease of operation and minimal maintenance life cycles while enhancing the university's recruiting efforts and fostering individual and team achievement. In this case, however, the "individuals" aren't just star athletes pursuing records and titles. Rather, the natatorium on Bucknell University's Lewisburg, Pa., campus is unique in the sense that the school chose not to segregate varsity athletes from general student/recreational users. Indeed, the facility, part of the university's grand Kenneth G. Langone Athletics & Recreation Center, is designed to bring everyone

Contemporary artist Eric Orr and his protégé, Sean So, both use the flow of water to lend texture and bring distinction to basic, geometric forms. For them, these small flows embody ‘transformation,’ which stands as the ideological core of the Light and Space Movement they both represent. Here, So explains the tradition and creative essence of the movement and brings it into perspective as part of today’s commercial waterfeature market.

Light, Space and Water

The Light and Space Movement first emerged in the beachfront community of Venice, Calif., during the 1960s, when a group of artists collectively began to explore and redefine the way art was observed and appreciated. Leaders of the movement - painter and sculptor Eric Orr; Robert Irwin, who later designed the gardens at the Getty Center in Los Angeles; and environmental artist James Turrell - started by breaking down the transformative processes of art and minimalism, defining the character of their movement through

The concepts involved in setting up fully enclosed swimming pools seem pretty straightforward, observes indoor watershaping specialist Kevin Ruddy. But appearances can be deceiving, he adds, and the situation you encounter in balancing water temperature, air temperature and relative humidity can go from bad to worse in a hurry if you discover, much to a client’s dismay, that you aren’t completely sure of what you’re doing.

Inside Air

It seems so simple: No matter whether it's a residential or commercial project, the design parameters for indoor swimming pools generally call for warm water (typically 82 degrees, or a bit less for a competition pool), air temperature two to four degrees warmer than the water, and a relative humidity in the enclosed space of between 55% and 60%. And it wasn't some committee of pool builders who came up with those figures: The numbers are endorsed and published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration & Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and have been accepted as

Overseeing the design and installation of naturalistic, mostly large-scale watershapes for high-end developers and residential clients in the Salt Lake City area is clearly a passion for Derk Hebdon. Since he arrived in town three years ago and helped establish Bratt Inc.’s waterfeatures unit (which he now owns), he’s watched strong local market emerge and rise to a level where the watershapes are truly worthy of their dramatic surroundings.

Making the Wild Waters Flow

Graced by an abundance of beautiful, natural streams, cascades, rivers and lakes spread across spectacular native landscapes, Utah is a dream location for watershapers. Not only is there a rising demand for crafted streams, ponds and cascades that look like they really belong, but the state itself is also a genuine design laboratory. Indeed, I send our crews out into the "wild" periodically to do nothing more than hike up and down local watercourses to see how Mother Nature does things. These waterways are

Periodic Resources

As a reader of WaterShapes, it's likely you appreciate the valuable information published by quality magazines. I certainly do, so in addition to the steady diet of books I read to keep up on technical and design issues as well as business approaches and philosophies, I also turn to a handful of periodicals for the helpful and inspiring information they have to offer. For one thing, I find that these magazines fill gaps I perceive in my own background. For another - and even though some of the ones I read run far afield of the industry-specific information I value in trade magazines - I'm uniquely surprised by

Core Conditions

If the art of watershaping is ultimately about visuals, then creating a situation for yourself in which you're virtually guaranteed to create visual disruptions is something you certainly do not want to do. That's the situation I currently face in the renovation of a pool at a stunning, 1920s-vintage home in the heart of Los Angeles. As I indicated in my last column, it's a remarkably beautiful setting that features a 70-year-old pool that was well designed, expertly installed, well worth keeping - and surrounded by

Going Grey

Nobody seems particularly thrilled by environments devoid of light. Even at times when a lack of light is welcomed - as in the desert when you want to see the stars, or on a holiday night when you want to see a fireworks display - the events are related to light in some important way. The same attitude about light comes up when we speak of landscapes. We're always talking about "brightening up" a dark corner, for example, or "adding light" at one point or another. Whether the absence of light makes us uncomfortable or its presence is simply a