ARTICLES Archives - Page 279 of 312

Maximizing Exposures

I take a lot of pictures of my work - so many, in fact, that friends and colleagues often tease me about it. Chief among those antagonists are my Genesis 3 compatriots, Brian Van Bower and Skip Phillips, who have a running joke about how I always have a slide show ready, whether it's two in the morning in my home or off in some location far removed from classrooms or offices. And it's true: Because I shoot 35-mm slides of every aspect of every one of my projects, I usually

Meditative Spaces

Last month, we covered a side-yard project that fulfilled one family's dream of gaining a kitchen garden. This functional design worked well for what had basically been a small, unused space - but it's by no means the only use for such spaces. Small spaces can lend themselves to a number of different possibilities. Discussing the clients' lifestyle or wish list might uncover something they really want or can identify ideas they haven't yet considered as possible uses for the space. Case in point: I had a client who wanted to create three

Communicate and Coordinate

Last month, I began a discussion of things that those of us in the watershaping trades can do to improve our collective profile with the public - not to mention enhance our collective self-image. Education, of course, is a huge factor. And so is the level of professional courtesy with which we treat both clients and prospects. But those two points, discussed in detail last time, have less to do with the way we approach the practicalities of our businesses than is the case with another point that bears discussion: that is, project management and how we

Resolving Resolution

I understand why so many people love digital cameras: You don't have purchase or develop film, you can check your images instantly, and it's easy to upload pictures onto your computer and

With his rugged works of shaped water and stone, Colorado-based sculptor Richard Hansen has spent a career exploring what he calls ‘poetic dialogues’ between nature and humanity, permanence and ephemera, distance and intimacy. But his interest in the materials he uses goes well beyond such philosophical notions: He’s a hands-on artisan who particularly enjoys, he says, the unique sound that stone makes when it splits.

Poetry in Stone

The avant-garde composer John Cage once said, “Art exists to make us aware of the very life we’re living.” I’ve always loved that statement because, as someone working to create works of art, the experiences of my own life have naturally been transferred into the way I’ve chosen to express myself – and, I hope, have enabled me to succeed in bringing other people to an awareness of experiences in their own lives. For me, water is the key in these transferences: Even though I’m probably more often described as a sculptor of natural stone rather than as a watershaper, the dialogues I have with the materials I use and with those who observe the outcomes have always begun with the way I work with water. I grew up in the Midwest on the banks of the Mississippi. As a child, I lingered on the untamed shores of the creeks, streams and rivers that laced across an otherwise developed and thoroughly mechanized landscape. I would read or draw, stroll idly along a stream, or spend hours building a raft or dam. This was well before I’d begun to think about my relationship with water in any sort of artistic way, but there’s no question that those experiences remain at the heart of my passion for working within this

Creating a garden space for the sight-impaired and physically handicapped presented landscape architect Bruce Zaretsky with a meaningful challenge – one that, he says, prompted him to rethink some of the fundamentals of garden layout and aesthetics. The first fruit of his new thinking is this space, in which the serenity and delight of relaxing in a garden space is opened to a wider range of visitors than most designers ever have cause to consider.

Beyond Vision

The process of designing a watershape or garden usually requires the designer to answer a number of questions - the vast majority of them having to do with seeing the water and the landscape. Indeed, from considerations of color and scale to managing views and ensuring visual interest within the space, much of the designer's skill is ultimately experienced by clients and visitors with their eyes. But what if your client is blind or wheelchair-bound or both? How do you design for them? What colors do you use in your planting design? Would you even care about color? How will they move through the space and what experiences will await them? What would be the most important sensory evocation - sound, fragrance or texture? These are the sorts of special questions we asked ourselves after being approached by clients who had the desire to create a sensory garden for visually impaired and physically handicapped people. The experience shed a whole new light on the power of non-visual aesthetics and prompted me to

Not long ago, hydraulics consultant Jeff Freeman traveled to a remote area of Panama to renovate the circulation and filtration system on a big pool at a missionary camp that serves its region’s underprivileged children. The situation he encountered is a textbook case in just how bad things can get when hydraulics are not well considered before construction – and how much they can be improved through application of some common sense.

Remote Patrol

It's truly a diamond in the rough: a huge, sparkling blue pool set in the middle of nowhere in a country that is probably best known for being the gateway between two grand oceans. For a time before I arrived on the scene, however, the enormous rectangular swimming pool at Palabra de Vida, a Christian missionary camp in Chame, Panama, was anything but shimmering. The mission operates a camp for the region's underprivileged children, who visit the facility in shifts that stretch across several months each year. There are times when

Building by Water

When I first picked up Water and Architecture by Charles W. Moore (published by Harry H. Abrams in 1994), I thought I'd found the perfect resource for those of us who design and build contained, controlled bodies of water. As I delved into this book's incredibly well-illustrated 224 pages, however, for a short time I worried that the text was mostly irrelevant to the working lives of watershapers. Ultimately, however, I found the text to be very helpful - even if it wasn't in the manner I had initially thought. I was disheartened initially because the text seemed so broad in its coverage of water and architecture - and so rooted in history and philosophy - as to be of little practical use. Specifically, Moore deals with subjects as grand as rivers, oceans, harbors and architectural history in very broad and almost

It unfolds as a serene and inspiring space, as a solemn and symbolic tribute to self-sacrifice and the anguish of war: The Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Worcester’s Green Hill Park had been a labor of love and devotion for decades by the time it was completed and dedicated in 2002, say the project’s principal landscape architects/environmental designers, and proved to be worth every bit of the effort required to make it happen.

An Edge of Honor

The site was chosen because the existing water, terrain and natural landscape were a perfect fit: Like no other available space, the design team saw that this setting could be used to symbolize the character of Vietnam’s landscape – wetlands and bogs, water crossings, hills and forests, meadows and plains – and shaped into a memorial to casualties of a war that ended in Southeast Asia nearly three decades ago. It’s a beautiful and peaceful space, one that now encompasses four acres of land around the perimeter of Duck Pond, a small and scenic body of water nestled in the gently rolling landscape of

The Jet Set

If you've been following this column for the past several issues, you already know a good bit about the magnificent (and magnificently difficult) project I completed late last year in the Malibu Colony. Many times in those columns, I mentioned (mostly in passing) a system of four deck-level laminar jets we planned on installing. As was the case with just about everything else on this project, incorporating the system of jets into the courtyard environment turned out to be far more complicated and challenging than we ever thought it would be. When all was said and done, however, we all agreed that meeting this particular challenge was