ARTICLES Archives - Page 314 of 326

Designing with Water Plants

I feel like I'm working backward: First, I told you about a gargantuan water lily and its very specific requirements, then I offered a more general look at water lilies that will thrive in almost any pond. Now I'm going to give you some ideas and tips for designing with all types of water plants. It might have been more logical to approach things the other way around, but the important thing is that we're ready to complete the package and talk about ways of incorporating lilies and water plants of other sorts into beautiful, overall planting designs. As always, I will avoid getting too specific with recommendations. Instead, I'll stick to basic

Made in the Shade

In recent years, I've noticed a tremendous increase in the demand for shade structures - so much so that it would seem the era of slathering on suntan oil and basking in the sun in search of a savage tan might be gone forever. It's an exciting trend that really expands the creative possibilities for watershapers working across a broad range of styles and pricing levels. And no one could be happier about that than me: For one thing, I'm fair-skinned and burn easily; for another, adding

Core Values

It's disappointing when we discover that something beautiful on the surface is devoid of substance at its core. Our world is full of far too many examples: The ill-tempered

International Flavors

Good design isn't the sole province of any one country: It's something that happens around the world in response to local flavors and textures and the needs and desires of people who live there. Most of these watershape markets are absolutely minuscule by comparison to the U.S. market - but in each location you'll find clients who are just as interested as their American counterparts in commissioning watershapes that reflect high aspirations, suitable affluence and

The Pouring of the Green

Edge treatments are important to me. They can lead the eye into the water, set up a barrier, break down a barrier. They're simply too critical to the overall impression made by a watershape to be left to chance. For the past ten years, I've found myself using one edge treatment more and more: a poured-in-place coping that uses colored concrete. I've now done it dozens of times, and my clients have always been thrilled by the results. In effect, I use the concrete to create soft and subtly colored rectangular

Water Lilies on Parade

So you read my last article and were so excited about Amazonian Water Lilies that you'd decided to talk some clients into going for it. But alas, after measuring their yard, you recognize that you won't have enough room to accommodate the gargantuan watershape you'll need to host such an immense plant. But your clients are still hot to trot with something unusual, even after you've accepted the fact that

Hemispheres of Interest

I've racked up my fair share of professional accolades and honors in the past 20-odd years. I suppose if I paid too much attention to all that stuff, I might be tempted to think that I know almost everything about my industry - but I wouldn't dream of harboring that thought, because the amount of stuff I don't know has always impressed me a lot more than the pile of stuff I do know. That simple recognition has made me hungry for knowledge and new experiences and has influenced the way I've always approached my life and my work. In fact, I shudder to think of all the things

Across the Waters

For all the comments I've heard through the years that there are too many swimming pool trade shows and that the National Spa & Pool Institute's big national show isn't

The technology known as the Global Positioning System (GPS) originally was assembled to guide missiles in military operations, but watershaper Paolo Benedetti sees civilian use of this satellite-based navigation system as one of the next technological frontiers for high-end designers and contractors. Here, he tells how he’s already put it to use – and how it helped him stave off an earth-bound disaster that was just waiting to occur.

An Aerial Assist

This is a story about a job that didn't happen - not yet, at any rate. It all started when I was brought in to bid on a hillside swimming pool project and ended months later, with the dust still settling and the project scuttled for the moment. And nobody could have been happier with that outcome than I was. That fact that my client and I decided to pull back and wait is not so unusual, but given the fact that the decision was driven by advanced military navigation technology makes this one of the most unusual situations I've ever encountered. The upshot

Water doesn’t typically fly through the air with the greatest of ease. Indeed, multitudes of environmental factors influence it along the way, making its behavior unpredictable and offering real challenges to engineers who want to create consistent visual and aesthetic effects. But when it comes to extending laminar flows, says fountain designer Paul L’Heureux, things that couldn’t be accomplished a few years back are now within reach – even in backyards.

Stretching Water

Through all the centuries of watershape design, the laws of physics have imposed restrictions on the watershaper's ability to extend a laminar flow of sheeting water beyond a drop of five or six feet. Go much beyond that limit and the sheet breaks up, thus impairing the aesthetic effect, causing an annoying degree of splashing and generating an abundance of undesirable, monotonous noise. Those physical laws have been seriously bent in public spaces in recent times. Indeed, special weirs and nozzles have made it possible to achieve laminar flows of 12 feet or more. Up until now, the solutions employed to achieve these effects have usually been beyond the budget of smaller commercial projects or residential clients - but that's changing. At my firm, Crystal Fountains, we've long been studying the phenomenon of falling water with an eye toward maximizing the surface tension of water and thereby extending the "laminar" effect without breaking the bank. We've had the luxury of working on some high-end projects that enabled us to perform the research and development necessary to do that stretching. By adapting some of the design ideas we