ARTICLES Archives - Page 309 of 316

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

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