ARTICLES Archives - Page 285 of 325

Martha and Randy Beard have achieved watershaping success by executing sophisticated design programs for a variety of high-end architects and landscape architects in southern California. Here’s another in their series of articles about these collaborations – in this case a look at their recent work with architect David Tardiff, a cutting-edge designer of homes and spaces for affluent customers who demand beauty and excitement in their surroundings.

Senses of Direction

Water moving in all sorts of different directions (but always in controlled ways) is a hallmark of one our favorite designers, architect David Tardiff. We've built the watershapes for many of his projects, and we've particularly enjoyed those that put both his vigor and special subtlety on display. Time and again, his designs have challenged us technically while rewarding our clients with results that always seem to leave them proud, amazed and thoroughly satisfied. As we've discussed in our previous WaterShapes articles, a large part of our business is about executing watershapes for architects and landscape architects in the backyards of mostly affluent clients in southern California's Orange County. Each designer has his or her own creative style and sensibility, leaving us to adapt the work we do to their "idea sets" while lending our years of practical experience in engineering and construction to the process. In working this way, we find that everyone comes out a winner: The designer creates work that is based in reality; we stretch and expand our skills to realize truly spectacular design concepts; and most important, clients gain refined spaces that hit the mark with respect to both functionality and aesthetics. The two projects we'll visit on these pages are

The home sat above the shoreline of Seattle’s Mercer Island like a modern, angular beacon. The challenge, says watershape designer/builder Clayton Varick, was to weave the residence more successfully into its lakeside surroundings – a mission accomplished by setting up a string of pools, streams, waterfalls, ponds and plantings that effectively create transitions from the starkly geometrical to the breathtakingly natural.

Natural Transitions

Finding ways to blend the angular rhythms of modern architecture with the sweeping splendors of nature constitutes one of the more difficult challenges faced by today's watershapers. In the case of the project pictured on these pages, we were contacted in 2002 about an enormous, modern-style home on Mercer Island overlooking the shore of Lake Washington, right near Seattle. The property was being remodeled, and the owners wanted a set of watershapes that would enhance the beauty of the two-acre estate while more convincingly integrating the geometry of the structure with its woodsy lakefront setting. The solution: a set of watershapes that start near the house with perfect geometric forms that stick to the architect's original design, then moves down the hillside through various transitional stages to a pond feature that looks like part of

Illustrating Feng Shui

This column must be prefaced with the thought that, for a great many of our clients, perception is reality. That's something I hold onto whenever I get involved in trying to understand and use feng shui, the ancient Chinese method for arranging harmonious, balanced spaces. I am far from a devotee of the art (or science, as some would have it), but I'm aware that some of my clients know a thing or two about it - and that knowing something myself is essential to working with them successfully or at all. There are literally hundreds of books about feng shui. Of the half dozen I've read, none is better suited to the needs of the watershaper than The Complete Illustrated Guide to Feng Shui for Gardens by Lillian Too (Element, 1999). There are a couple of key points that make Too's perspective on feng shui so useful: First, she

Island Building

The project I've been working on in the hills outside Hanover, Pa., has just about every feature, bell and whistle one can imagine. That inclusiveness of detail at every level has translated to an unusually intricate construction process, as I mentioned last time in discussing the excavation, forming, plumbing and steel phases. Now we get to the gunite. Where a garden-variety backyard pool involves placement of maybe 30 to 50 yards of concrete and some larger projects may run in the 50-to-70-yard range (and where most of mine tend to fall in the 90-to-130 yard range) - this project needed two gunite rigs shooting for two solid days, 12 to 13 hours each day. The pool shell alone (excluding the waterfall, the grotto and several other features we'll get into later) required a staggering 300 yards of concrete. That's about

Rocky Pleasures

Rocks are, in my opinion, among the most versatile of all elements that can be added to landscape designs. As was discussed in my last column, they can be used to add texture or dimension or retain soil; they can also be used to add background or hide eyesores, and there are myriad other uses creative designers can find for them. Of course, different design styles call for different uses of rocks, stones and pebbles. An Asian garden, for example, might use them to simulate or represent water or mountains in a landscape, while the very same stones used in a cottage or natural setting might serve no purpose beyond providing a place to sit or a focal point that

Finding Ways

Last month, I jumped into the New Year with a discussion of how the trends we face these days are influencing our recent experiences in business, society and life in general. In doing so, we navigated our through a mixed bag of factors - advancing technology, interesting economic times and complex legal conditions on the grand scale up alongside local, narrower issues having to do with the emergence of the watershaping business, the wayward nature of trade associations and the state of relevant education for our trades. All that was intended to set up this column's discussion of where we, as the watershaping industry, might be going in the months and years to come. Pure prognostication, however, is an imperfect process in which I won't indulge. Rather than get into the aimless game of offering predictions, I'll delve instead into

Outside the Rocks

Sometimes I like clichés. That's tough and perhaps treasonous for an editor to admit, but there are certain phrases that truly resonate, and I stand by them for what I think are

There’s nothing more important to successful construction of custom watershapes, says structural engineer Ron Lacher, than the effective use of pneumatically applied concrete and reinforcing steel. But for all the utility and familiarity of these basic materials, he adds, many in the watershaping trades could benefit from a better understanding of their individual natures – and of how this powerful and time-tested tandem works together.

Where Concrete Meets Steel

The combination of concrete and steel is the currency of most modern construction, and there's a simple economic explanation for that fact: The affordability and availability of the basic ingredients of cement, aggregate, water and rebar have made their combination viable for use in countries the world over. Used together, especially when the cementitious product comes in the form of pneumatically applied concrete, reinforced concrete is incredibly flexible and can be used to create almost any shape we might imagine. And in the case of pneumatic application, those shapes can largely be created without the use of traditional concrete forms. Indeed, it's a construction matrix that can be used in such a way that the contours of the soil dictate the shape of the structure, giving the watershaper almost unlimited flexibility. It's even fair to say that

Along with an increasing demand for large, naturalistic watershapes in both residential and commercial settings has come an unprecedented desire for exceptional water quality in those bodies of water, says George Forni, a specialist in the design, construction and maintenance of lakes, ponds and streams. Here, using several of his projects in northern California as examples, he discusses just what it takes to meet both the demand and the desire.

Free and Clear

Clear, polished water in well-designed, well-built lakes, ponds and streams: What better way to communicate a powerful message about the value of the properties that surround them? In a commercial setting, for example, clear water in a meandering string of ponds will readily translate into office space filled with happy tenants, while the murky-water alternative could be just the eyesore that holds down the image and limits the facility's financial success. The same principle works for watershapes at apartment complexes, where unseemly streams will almost certainly draw complaints from unhappy residents while cool, translucent water will become a point of pride and source of relaxation for tenants who otherwise might reflexively hold their noses as they pass by. Or consider the private estate where ponds are meant for swimming: Without question, these waters must have a crystalline clarity that attests to the water's safety and potential for recreation. Delivering this level of water quality is more and more a part of

When it was decided to upgrade the children’s play area in Boston Common, Copley Wolff Design Group was called in to reshape a space that not only needed to serve the needs of a diverse population, but also had to fit within historic surroundings. This was no small challenge, say landscape architects Lynn Wolff and John Copley, but the resulting Tadpole Playground now charms children (and their parents) with whimsy, art and water.

Little Amphibians

Founded in 1634, Boston Common is the oldest public park in America - a significant and historic public place. It is familiar to us as Bostonians, of course, but we've also been privileged as a firm to have worked there before, when we renovated the park's main watershape, the Frog Pond, to serve as a splash pool in summer and as an ice-skating rink in winter. During the pond renovation, we learned that tackling projects in such storied surroundings can be a tall order. For example, we had to place all of the pond's chillers and pumping equipment underground to mask any obvious intrusion on the 17th-century space. As we approached a second major project - this time the renovation of the park's playground - we knew going in that those who hired us were keenly sensitive to the nature of the place and came armed with preconceptions about colors, images and what would be "appropriate" for the setting. To keep things moving, we worked very closely with the city's Historic Commission in establishing the color palette, procuring artwork and developing an overall plan that would result in a space that was attractive and safe for children and suited to the surroundings. To be sure, the negotiations were intense as we