ARTICLES Archives - Page 304 of 311

It was a massive commercial installation, one that included a decorative fountain, a large free-form swimming pool, a tile-lined stainless-steel spa, a massive rock waterfeature and a high-tech, interactive children’s play feature – all meant to add to the appeal of an exclusive Florida resort. Teamwork was the key, says the project’s manager, Russell Penick, with success resulting from the combined effort of architects, engineers, suppliers and contractors.

Everything Under the Sun

Everything about this job was big: the budget, the number of watershapes, the upscale location and, especially, the customer's expectations. The owners, Town Realty of Milwaukee, envisioned their five watershapes as the key amenities for a new condominium development in Cocoa Beach, Fla., a signature element that would woo potential buyers who visited the 124-unit vacation complex. To reach that goal, their project team gathered aquatic experts from all over the Sunshine State to create the plans and specifications, supervise the bidding process, oversee construction and

Making More of a Good Thing

By repeating something from one place in the yard to another, you tie everything together - and expand upon an idea that has already worked somewhere else in that yard. With landscaping, this doesn't always have to mean plants. When you find something that works and you like it, why not stick with it? Last month, I told you how we turned a small wasteland into an indoor oasis for one of my clients. When we were finished with the project, the clients were

In These Best of Times

I've been paying attention to what goes on in this industry for a long time, and I'd have to say that these times are better than any I've ever witnessed. And it's not just me: I talk all the time with people all over the country, and it's probably not going out on much of a limb to say that most of us are having the best times we've ever had. Everywhere you look, people are pressing as hard as they can to keep up with the demands being placed on them. And it's true even in

Starting to Click

It's really too bad that no one was around with a camera, taking pictures when the Egyptians built the great pyramids. Just imagine the volumes of

As clients demand more and more creativity and aesthetic value in their watershapes, an increasing number of professionals are turning to the installation of prefabricated or custom-designed mosaics as a way to add elegance, complexity and sometimes even humor to their work. Here, tile expert Dan Andrews surveys this trend and takes us on a tour through the possibilities of a form of artistic expression with a long, long history.

A Real Glass Act

It's an art form that connects modern craftspeople to those of the distant past. In fact, the roots of mosaic tiling can be traced to Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C., where temple walls were decorated with simple earthenware fragments. Centuries later, the ancient Greeks decorated their courtyards with large and small pebble mosaics, and sophisticated examples of mosaic work are found later in everything from Turkish mosques to Italian basilicas. The Romans, however, probably pushed mosaics about as far as any culture could in the first few centuries A.D. They adorned baths, pools, spas, floors and walls of important buildings as well as humbler residences with intricate mosaics made up of ceramic, stone, glass and marble. Recent years may have seen a revival of this ancient artistic technique, but as can be seen in the accompanying photographs, what many of today's designers are doing with classic forms is a real step forward - a departure from tradition that has made today's mosaics a thoroughly modern form of

When concrete shells crack, trouble is near at hand: The emerging cracks are sure to grow, and water will eventually leak out of the watershape to create a cascade of additional problems. Unfortunately for the homeowner, the options here are few and can be very costly. In this feature, an expert in crack remediation and shell repair explores those options and discusses the techniques he uses to shore up severe structural cracks in a reliable and permanent way.

Squeezing the Gaps

Despite everyone's best intentions, concrete structures sometimes crack. If those cracks occur in the shell of a pool, spa or other watershape and are big enough, they'll eventually leak - which often leads to development of even bigger cracks and far larger headaches for everyone involved. In many cases, nobody is to blame. You might have worked under the guidance of a geologist or engineer and used good construction practices in building a structure meant to withstand the tests of soils that expand, contract, shift, settle and occasionally quake, but structural cracks are a fact of life. You can

From expansive commercial installations to small backyard waterfeatures, artificial rockwork has become a mainstay for many watershapers – and for good reason: It allows the builder to achieve looks that might not have been possible otherwise, and to do so at reasonable cost. In this feature, experienced faux-rock designer and installer Ken Macaire covers some of the principles he applies in selecting formations and in creating rockworks that dazzle the eye while looking truly ‘natural.’

Creating Good Impressions

The most important use of faux rock is to make a geological statement - to provide an important accent or focal point in a landscape where none exists. My goal is to create rock formations that complement and enhance the natural setting and fit in harmoniously with their surroundings. That's a point builders who use artificial rock sometimes fail to grasp. They'll execute an ambitious scheme with lots of interesting, well-crafted rockwork, but it ultimately looks unnatural because the rocks they've created have no logical relationship to any indigenous formations or anything else in the surrounding space. I approach things in a different way - one that embraces the site and all of its features. I select, form and install faux rocks that, together, create interesting and beautiful statements in the overall landscape design. As I work, I make my installations to stand up to the question, "Is this rock formation

When do you think about the exterior lighting for your watershapes and their surroundings? Is it an afterthought, or part of your plan from the beginning? In his experience, says veteran lighting designer Mike Hersman, the former is too commonly the case – and that’s a bad habit this designer and installer of lighting systems would like to change because of the visual wonders that can be unveiled once the sun goes down.

Night Visions

It's a simple fact: No matter where you are on the globe, ultimately it's dark exactly half the time. So no matter how beautiful your watershapes may be, if you don't fully consider lighting as a key component of your projects, you may be robbing your work of half its potential for pleasing your clients. That makes it a bottom-line issue, because lighting adds real value to most any watershape installation with a long list of benefits. For starters, it extends the time a watershape can be used beyond daylight hours. It also adds

Horses to Engines

When I first begin to do research for a column, I really have little control over the direction I might take. If it's a cut-and-dried technical subject where I'll be dealing primarily with solid, scientific facts, the task is relatively simple. Using my own textbooks, two local libraries and the Internet, I look for my subject matter in a minimum of three separate sources. If the information is identical in each selected source, I feel pretty confident that I can use the data in an article. It isn't always so easy, however, and that's nobody's fault but

Small Solutions

What do you do with a space that seems too small for a watershape and too small for plantings? The answer: Think small. You don't have to compromise on style or substance, but simply by thinking on a smaller scale, you'll open up a lot of possibilities you might not have considered. About three years ago, for example, I was brought in on a job to do a quick fix for a very small but prominent area of a client's yard. The homeowner wanted to completely rework the entire property, but it was clear there was a lot of other work to do first. The quick fix went very well and the clients were pleased, so they asked me to