ARTICLES Archives - Page 294 of 312

Paying the Front-Runner’s Fee

I've always been excited by innovation. I place creativity high on my list of aspirations and priorities in my own business, and I think my life gets most interesting when I'm involved with people who are similarly attuned to this desire to do and try new and interesting things. Fortunately, I've had the benefit of associating with highly innovative people through the years who've shared the creative process with me, taught me a lot and made the ride extremely enjoyable - and fruitful. These experiences have filled me with a desire to be out front myself with innovative and creative ideas. I often wonder where we would all be if some of us weren't willing to

Watching Rivers Run

There's a fascinating conceptual relationship between man-made bodies of water and those created by nature. On the one hand, the most accomplished

Nature has it’s own set of rules, observes horticulturalist and zoologist Jeff Rugg of Pond Supplies of America. If you work in harmony with those rules, you stand a good chance of being successful in creating systems that support plant and animal life. Work against them, he says, and nature will soon show you the error of your ways. Here’s a look at what it takes to make the balancing act work, from pond sizing to basic equipment and materials.

Practicing Nature’s Balance

It all begins with the water. The first thing anyone approaching the world of ponds needs to understand is that life-supporting water is quite unlike the sterile water found in swimming pools or spas or many other watershapes. A second and related point is that clear water is not necessarily healthy water when it comes to the needs of the inhabitants of the pond. For a pond to be healthy, its water must meet the chemical requirements of plants and fish by having an abundance of some things (such as nutrients) and a near-total lack of other things (such as pollutants). Sanitized water may be beautifully clear, but the fact that sterile systems are designed to knock out nutrients and work chemically because they are "polluted" with chlorine and algaecides makes them completely unsuitable as life-supporting ecosystems. The goal with ponds is to work with nature in balancing the life-sustaining features of the water - and to set things up in such a way that maintaining that balance will be something your clients can do long after you've moved along to another project. To do so, you need to embrace the water-quality basics outlined in the last issue of

There’s more to successful watershapes than good looks, observes Greg Stoks of Commercial Aquatics Engineering. This was particularly true of the trademark fountains of the Rainforest Cafés, a collection of elaborately themed family restaurants designed to mimic tropical environments: Troubles with the chain’s first few locations, he says, prompted owners to call for help in curing what were becoming costly water-related headaches.

Streamlined for Paradise

An important part of creating beautiful commercial watershapes is designing systems that actually work, effectively and enduringly, within the requirements and constraints of their given settings. This has become a real issue in the fountain business, where new demand is popping up at locations as diverse as resorts, malls, hotels, art pavilions, office buildings, convention centers, museums and even restaurants - and a few too many good-looking designs have been pulled out, significantly downsized or turned into planters because they just haven't performed as needed or

To homeowners, swimming pools have always represented fun and relaxation. But they also can mean overwhelming energy bills, especially when heating cold water with fossil-fuel heaters is required. As energy efficiency and conservation reclaim prominence in our national consciousness, inventor and manufacturer Mark Urban sees a brave, new world – one in which pools become a resource, not an energy drain.

Filling the Energy Gap

Everyone is concerned these days about electricity, gasoline and natural gas and all other forms of energy. What is amazing is that, despite this surge in interest, very few people have considered ways in which swimming pools can be built to reduce the energy required to heat them - and by substantial amounts. This dearth of energy consciousness has nothing to do with the manufacturers of heating equipment. It's fair to say that most heater manufacturers - whether they pursue combustion heating with fossil fuel, compression heating with heat pumps or passive heating with radiant solar, absorbent solar panels or solar covers - all have optimized their own products and made them remarkably energy-efficient. The same is true of recirculation systems: Pumps of all kinds are optimized to very high efficiencies, and the pool and spa industry has made positive improvements in acknowledging the necessities of hydraulic efficiency (although it's fair to say we

First created for use in the supercharged, hyperactive environments of aquatic theme parks, interactive waterplay systems now offer the designer of public and semi-public spaces an arsenal of fun-inducing features. They work in just about any setting, says Pam Pasotti of manufacturer SCS Interactive – anywhere you think people might take up the invitation to get wet in the name of pure, unadulterated fun.

Invitations to Play

Interactive watershapes are all about invitations to play. For designers, interactive watershapes provide invitations to use water and the control of flowing water to create unique play environments. For children, teenagers, parents and other adults, they are invitations to play with one another in a safe and exciting aquatic playground. It's a form of invitation that's rapidly gaining popularity in an era when playtime for both children and adults has become excessively passive and dominated by surfing the net, playing computer games or staying glued to

Art from the East

If you've been looking for a well-written, beautifully illustrated book that cracks the code when it comes to the design principles of Japanese gardening and introduces the full range of styles found in this ancient art form, you can't go wrong with Japanese Garden Design. Written by designer Marc P. Keane (and published by Charles E. Tuttle in 1996 but still in print), the book offers a detailed examination of this most influential of styles. For watershapers, landscape designers and

Stretching Out the Hand-Off

As with every other step along the path of true quality in watershape construction, a good start-up is critical - a key transitional step requiring supervision, teamwork and passion for the work. This is the point where a watershaper's vision becomes reality, where construction becomes maintenance and where the clients' dream is finally realized. It's another important detail, and getting it right requires complete trust and wide-open lines of communication among builder, service technician and homeowner. That puts a premium on finding the best possible person in your area to take on the responsibility. In my case, I consider myself very fortunate to work with a

Edibles by the Water

Imagine your clients in this scene: It's a warm, summer evening, dinner for two on the patio is almost ready, the waterfall is on, and candlelight is reflecting on the surface of the pond. But the salad isn't quite complete, so this evening's chef steps into the yard, clips some chives from a clump near the water's edge and adds a finishing touch to the composition. Later, they pick a few plums and apricots for dessert, relaxed and about as happy as they could be in their backyard. Though the setting is delightful, it's the edible plants that complete the experience. And as was mentioned last time, with more and more people wanting

To the Good Life!

It's a statement that draws no argument: If you work hard, you should get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. For all of the obvious truth of that idea, I wonder how many of us hard-working folks in the watershaping trades take the time for those things that bring us enjoyment and a sense of reward. To be truthful, my guess is that far too many of us let the hard work get in the way of keeping promises we've made to ourselves to stop and smell the roses every now and then. Years ago, I hosted a radio program with my brother, Guy. It was called "The Good Life," and the tagline was, "The Bower Brothers sharing their enjoyment of food, wine and the good life." Neither my brother nor I were