ARTICLES Archives - Page 281 of 312

Devils in the Details

Why is it that, on the pool/spa side of the watershaping business, it's so difficult to find much by way of truly workable plans and specifications? In residential work, of course, the tone is set by local building inspectors and plan checkers, whose needs seem to vary tremendously from place to place. But that's no excuse for the fact that the plans used in a great many residential projects are grossly inadequate - especially when compared to the far more detailed and precise plans and specifications required by

Higher Purposes

Lately I've noticed a fascinating trend among the projects we've been approached to publish - a string of articles about watershapes that, for want of a better term, have been designed with

The way pond/stream artist Bob Dews sees it, simple structures he calls ‘dirt pockets’ could revolutionize the way plants are used in naturalistic watershapes. For starters, he says, these pockets give him unprecedented flexibility in taking care of the aesthetics. In addition, they also offer benefits when it comes to the sustained health of the streams, ponds and cascades he’s been installing for clients in the most beautiful parts of North Carolina.

Pocket Change

To make a pond or stream successfully "natural," the designer and installer must know what it takes to produce a convincing illusion that the end product is actually a naturally occurring body of water. It's no secret in the trade that this illusion is made or broken at the edges, where the physical boundaries between waterway and the hardscape and plantings must be both precisely controlled and completely concealed. Necklaces of stone won't cut it, nor will waterlines sharply defined by lines of terrestrial plants. In fact, the challenge here is to make visually linear boundaries disappear, and that's a tall order for even the best pond/stream designers and builders. In my own projects, I work almost every day in tweaking and refining my approaches to these margins and edge treatments, and I've come up with many ways to enhance the natural appearance of my ponds and streams. In recent years, I've been honing a technique for landscaping in and around the water that's given my work an entirely new dimension: It's a type of planting container I call a "dirt pocket" - a simple structure that lets me plant a broad range of non-aquatic plants directly in contact with

Outdoor cooking and entertainment areas are becoming more and more popular among his mid- to high-end clients in California’s Silicon Valley, observes watershaper Paolo Benedetti. That’s why he now sees ‘exterior kitchens’ as much more than an afterthought and has instead found ways to integrate them fully into his work with homeowners, from the start of the design process through to a highly functional finish.

Kitchens of Distinction

What started as a slow simmer has now come completely to a boil. Ten years ago, precious few of our clients had little or no interest in setting up outdoor cooking areas to go along with their pools, spas and waterfeatures. That's certainly not the case today, when fully 90% of our clients want us to set up some sort of kitchen amenity as part of their deck and patio areas. You don't have to be a marketing genius to see what's happening: It's great fun to

Clean, clear water is crucial for most watershapes, but when the vessel’s purpose is to house and nurture rescued and injured marine animals, says Pentair’s Mike Fowler, the need for top-quality water is even greater. Here, he describes how his company’s pool filters came to be used at an animal rehabilitation facility in Florida, where they now ensure that dolphins, sea turtles and more are nursed back to health and trained in crystalline water.

Helping Habitats

It was a rainy Wednesday morning in January when I first toured the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. I was on hand to inspect the recent installation of a pair of our horizontal sand filters for the facility's marine-mammal pool and see just how well the pool-filtration products were faring in this somewhat unusual (but not unheard of) application. Located on Island Estates in Clearwater, Fla., the aquarium was bustling with activity from the moment the doors opened at 9 a.m. On this day, a group of pre-school children had arrived to see the aquarium's newest dolphin, Presley, and his friend, Panama. The staff also explained to me that the aquarium, like other indoor attractions, is always busier when the rain falls. I joined right in with the crowd, fascinated by everything I was seeing. My guide, the aquarium's director of life support and marine facilities, Bill Meier, led me to the marine mammal pool - currently home to Presley and Panama but with the capacity to hold several more. This was the vessel on which my company, Pentair Pool Products of Sanford, N.C., had installed the sand filters. As I watched the children's faces as they in turn watched the dolphins, I began to realize that we were

Explaining Architecture

A paperback edition of Francis D.K. Ching's book, Architecture: Forms, Space and Order, had been sitting on my desk for less than a day when my colleague and friend Mark Webb spotted it and became pretty animated. He started talking about the book in a way that made it seem it was a given that we both should be completely familiar with it. I had, in fact, just picked up my copy at a used bookstore without ever having heard of Ching or knowing anything about his highly influential body of work. I soon learned that Webb and many other architecture and landscape architecture students (beyond yours truly) read Ching's work early on in their studies. Feeling as though I'd missed out on something important in my education, I dove into the text and soon came to understand why my friend

Crossroads of Culture

I spent ten days this last December traveling in Turkey - my second visit to the country in the past several years and a trip that reinforced vivid memories of just how mind-expanding a place it is. The Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires all held sway over this patch of land at times during the past 2,500 years, and throughout that long history, these and other great civilizations of both East and West have made their marks on the place. Situated at the crossroads of land- and sea-trade routes between Europe and Asia, Turkey has vast, rich reserves to drawn upon when it comes to

The Dirt on Soil

Watershapers are still fairly easily divided into two groups, one with its origins in the landscape trades, the other hailing from the pool industry. For all the distinctions that might be drawn between them, however, watershapers of all stripes have one very important thing in common: We all work with the stuff we find under our feet on the job site - the stuff we generally call dirt or soil. Dirt is the more inclusive of the two terms, and unless the contractor is working with a tricky site or faces compaction issues, it is simply what is carted away or rearranged to make room for a watershape. By contrast, soil is a blanket term covering

Warming to the Touch

Last time, we began a discussion of giving our clients the satisfying hot-water experience they crave with a review of basic design principles and coverage of a range of materials-selection issues. Translating the good on-site positioning and great materials we surveyed in February into a luxurious spa experience requires the designer to have an advanced understanding of the technology at work in hydrotherapy as well as a grasp of the spectrum of options available to drive and control hot-water systems. Before we address those key topics, however, it bears

Recipes for Fun

I love the fact that more and more people I talk to are referring to the bodies of water they create as works of art. At their best, watershapes do indeed possess all the aesthetic potential of