ARTICLES Archives - Page 306 of 314

Shocking Truths

In the spring of 1941, my mom and dad, my sister and I moved into our brand-new house on Ardmore Avenue in one of northwest Detroit's real estate developments. It was a thoroughly modern house, with all of the latest high-tech features - the garage door moved upward to open, instead of swinging left and right like barn doors, and the furnace in the basement was operated by natural gas, eliminating forever the need to shovel coal. The house cost $5,550. From an electrical standpoint, the house was up to the codes and standards of its day - albeit a far cry from what is required today. The wiring was a two-wire system with no ground. All of the receptacles had two equal-size slots, and that was just fine because anything we wished to plug into these receptacles had a two-pronged plug at the end of its cord. A fuse panel in a bedroom closet contained four 15-amp fuses. That was it: four fuses to

A Sense of Privacy

A good friend of mine once told me that his idea of the perfect yard was one where he could walk around naked - and none of his neighbors would be able to see him. What a concept! Unfortunately, few of us can afford a yard so large that we could not be seen by neighbors under any circumstances. So what can you do to create that perfect private environment? As we'll see here, you have a lot of choices. DISCOVERING PREFERENCES Many people go all the way in creating privacy by building structures that make them feel safe and enclosed. Others prefer a less claustrophobic approach, such as soft plantings. Either way, and particularly when you are dealing with watershapes where your clients may want to enjoy communing with nature in the buff, creating some type of barrier against neighbors' intruding eyes is essential. Your clients' preferences may

Thriving in the Material World

There's much to be said about this brave, new world of watershaping we're in right now - and one of the things that's most abundantly clear is that clients expect more these days: What was "good enough" before just won't cut it, and to my way of thinking, that's a very good thing! One of the areas that most reflects this increase in expectations is the selection of the materials we use. More and more people I talk to around the country are now using things they wouldn't even have considered just five years ago - things that can add tremendous

Comfort, Fun and Beauty

It's tough to keep the Big Picture in mind when the day-to-day grind seems relentless. Even so, it's important to take a step back from time to time and remind yourself of exactly

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