ARTICLES Archives - Page 303 of 311

Taking inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright and features of the client’s home, pool designer and builder Michael Nantz worked a bit of backyard magic. By carefully shaping lines, contours, textures and elevations, he crafted a swimming pool and reflection pond that balance water with wood, hardscape and landscape – and accomplished a high-flying design with a decidedly down-to-earth price tag.

Mid-Range Mastery

It's a basic and important idea: Quality and beauty can and should be provided across a wide range of pricing levels. In my work, I design and build many residential and commercial watershapes with budgets well into six figures; I also tackle many projects firmly planted in the five-figure range. No matter the budget, I believe strongly that I owe it to my clients to deliver a watershape of lasting beauty each and every time. Fact is, quality and artistry often can be achieved with a distinctly uncomplicated program. By bringing a watershape's design into harmony with the architecture of the home and/or other adjoining structures, it's often possible to enhance aesthetics and value without dramatically increasing the price tag. Take the project seen here as an example: Through careful placement and shaping of the vessel, artistic edge treatments and minor elevation changes - none of which added appreciably to the cost - I left my clients with a watershape they love at a price they could

Steel structures may never entirely replace gunite shells for competition pools, says Joe Esser of Kiefer Pool & Equipment Co., but the ease of construction and durability of stainless vessels make it an interesting race to watch – particularly because steel opens competition-pool projects to a much wider range of builders. To demonstrate the whys and hows, he leads you through the construction process step by step, showing just what it takes to assemble these modular marvels.

Modular Marvels

It used to be that competition pools were the sole province of big engineering/construction companies with their substantial assets, impressive inventories of equipment, huge labor forces and established skills in working with low-tolerance plans and specifications. The arrival on the scene of modular stainless steel pool systems has changed all that - and it's a good thing, because so many competition and training pools are being built today that there are not enough qualified construction companies of the traditional sort to get around to installing them all. This boom is a product of both the popularity of aquatic sports and the

From start to finish, observes Rick Anderson, the process of stream building isn’t that complex or exotic. But in addition to good planning, he says, these projects require thoughtful spontaneity and a subtlety in the work itself that defines success or failure in creating streams that look ‘natural.’ Here, in the first of a series on stream construction, Anderson starts at the beginning – with the land and the layout and excavation phases.

Cutting a Channel

Building a stream that looks as though it was actually completed by Mother Nature is no small challenge. To make the illusion work, the watershaper quite literally "shapes" the basic elements of the stream - its path, width, depth, outcroppings, falls, transitions and plantings - all with an eye toward mimicking natural designs. To a large degree, the process is different from that of designing and building a pond, pool or fountain. In those cases, the watershape generally goes in the ground almost exactly where and how it's been drawn. With streams, however, the differences between

It’s why art museums are arranged in spatial sequences and why so many people love reading mystery novels: That excitement of discovery is a powerful tool used to create drama and interest for the observer or reader. So, too, says landscape designer Bobbie Schwartz, watershapers can lend welcome elements of surprise and wonder to their work, creating spatial experiences that unfold as clients approach or wander near the water’s edge.

The Unfolding Garden

As adults, we too often forget one of the great joys of childhood - the sense of wonder and discovery we experienced when we first saw the ocean or flew in an airplane and the world opened and unfolded before our very eyes. As designers, I believe we similarly forget about the excitement that comes with discovery. Too often, we lay out beautiful lines and incorporate interesting and unusual plant and hardscape material for everyone to see all at once. The work may be beautiful, but it leaves little or nothing to the imagination and offers no surprises. I can't help thinking how much more our landscapes, public and private, would be savored if they were to be explored and discovered bit by bit. This is especially true for spaces containing watershapes, which by themselves lend interest and drama to almost any space: The magic of water can (and I believe should) be exploited by concealing it at first and then revealing it in a way that gives the viewer a brief moment of visual revelation. To see what I mean with respect to watershapes and waterscapes, let's explore an approach that makes seeing everything immediately an impossibility. Instead, this approach offers glimpses that tantalize and intrigue - and can be seen in the work of thoughtful garden designers who've manipulated sights and sounds around the

Giving a Dam Its Due

Each year, the National Spa & Pool Institute offers special programs in conjunction with its International Expo. Most years, these programs include tours of local places of interest, such as notable museums, historical sites, outstanding examples of local architecture and the like. With the Expo in Las Vegas last December, NSPI took advantage of the location and included a tour of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, a scant 30 miles from the glitz and glitter of The Strip. More than100

Coping Skills

Your clients are thrilled with your pool design - with one exception. It may be set up to withstand a 9.0 earthquake, but with all that decking and concrete, it resembles a bomb shelter. Apparently while you were working with the client's desire for seismic durability in mind, you lost sight of their additional desire for soft, rolling meadows. I exaggerate here to make a point: Too many watershapers are reluctant to

In Search of Balance and Harmony

The words mean "earth luck," and over the last 18 months, at least half of my design-work appointments have been with people who have some concern or interest in the ancient philosophy known as feng shui. In fact, many of these (mostly upscale) customers already own books on the subject and have the expectation that I will factor feng shui principles in as I design their watershapes. By now, most of us have at least heard of this ancient Chinese philosophy, which is often described as "the art of living in perfect balance." If you're like me, it's been one of those things to which you've never paid too much attention in your own life. But as has been the case with other forms of Asian philosophy and spirituality, feng shui (pronounced fung shway) has

A Path Discovered

Last year at about this time, my wife and I were driving through Big Sur on the California coast when, on impulse, we decided to stop at

From golf courses to private estates, small lakes have become a familiar part of both urban and suburban landscapes. But few people give much thought to these mostly man-made bodies of water, says lake designer George Forni, or to how they are designed, engineered, built and maintained. To fill that information gap, he surveys the basics with an eye toward defining qualities that make lakes both beautiful and enduring.

Little Great Lakes

What is good lake construction? What makes some pristine and beautiful while others seem fetid and slimy? To discover the answer to these and other questions, we need to start by defining what we mean by "lake." It may seem arbitrary, but the distinction can be an important one, especially to people who own them. You don't want to insult anyone by calling their lake a pond or lagoon, for example. By the same token, you don't want to seem ill-informed or unprofessional in referring to their waterfeature as a lake. Given the different

Locked in the middle of walls and floors in everything from tiny fountains to gigantic commercial swimming complexes, a proper cage made up of steel reinforcing bars is the hidden strength that allows a concrete vessel to hold its form, come what may. Here, veteran steel contractor Larry Long takes a look at this key shell-shaping material, explaining what it takes to set up structures that will last a lifetime – and beyond.

Bent to Last

Watershapes come in lots of configurations and sizes, but when you get right down to it, they mostly share two basic materials of construction - concrete and steel - that in combination have the potential to withstand generations of use. Fashioning these structures is at the heart of what watershapers do: Every-thing else, from the plumbing or the plaster to the tile or the decking, is really secondary. Sure, the pool won't function without plumbing or look pretty without tile, but it wouldn't even exist without its skeleton of steel and its concrete flesh. For all that importance, however, most people tend to give the steel in particular little thought or care. It's invisible once the gunite is in place, so there's a tendency even among those who know better to blow it off and save a few bucks by using too little steel or by doing quick, sloppy work. And why should you care? No one will ever see what you've done, right? Actually, given the role that steel plays in the durability and viability of the concrete structure, this should be the last place to