ARTICLES Archives - Page 81 of 315

Free Your Mind

‘One of the fascinating things about working with the different types of clients we encounter as watershapers,’ wrote Brian Van Bower in his July 2007 Aqua Culture column in WaterShapes, ‘is that we can never really know what to expect. ‘If my years of experience have taught me anything,’ he added, ‘it’s that perception is often very different

This downtown Indianapolis apartment complex wanted a rooftop pool to help build a sense of community. Stainless steel was the answer here, writes Gary Novitski -- a shell that allowed for a stylish, vanishing-edge look up top while keeping everything watertight and safely dry below.

Steely Resolution

As a mixed-use apartment complex in downtown Indianapolis, Ind., the not-quite-modestly named Artistry complex boasts sleek architecture and modern features intended to reflect the community's long history of skilled craftsmanship as well as its appreciation for the arts and commitment to active, energetic lifestyles. The main building features five stories of urban apartment homes above 68,000 square feet of commercial office space. Two additional buildings provide options for alternative accommodations, including

Controlling Elements

‘Throughout recorded history,’ wrote David Tisherman in the July/August 2002 edition of WaterShapes, ‘people have tried to control the elements in every which way they can. We plant trees to block the wind, build levees to hold back rising river water and dikes to hold back the seas. We build skyscrapers that defy gravity, winds and earthquakes. ‘For all of this ingenuity, however, we sometimes don’t do a very good job. When our efforts to control the elements fail

The property may be in Missouri, but the clients wanted a 'mountain lake' to go along with their big, Rockies-style lodge. Kurt Kraisinger was happy to oblige -- both for the change of pace and for the scope and scale of what proved to be a vast, detailed and lengthy endeavor.

Mountain Majesty

Who says you have to live in the Rockies to get the perfect mountain home? These clients are living that dream just outside Kansas City, Mo. Not long ago, they purchased land north of the Missouri River near Smithville, a rural outpost known for its rolling hills, plentiful trees and tobacco farms. It's a place where relatively low-cost land is still available, and people have started buying acreage and building their

#27: Fire Bowls

This article concludes a little series I've been doing that feature bowls in association with my pool and spa designs. The first two were about water bowls in very different applications. This one is about fire bowls and, in greater detail, about materials you can put in them to cover the burners, disperse the flames and make them look good even when

Design or Art?

I spent a couple strange hours the other day, surfing through Internet references to what I have discovered is a fairly lively Art-versus-Design debate. What I found was oddly interesting at first, but after a while, I began feeling underwhelmed by the whole discussion, which seemed mostly to be about trying to

Vanishing-edge pools have been around for a long time now, but Paolo Benedetti is aware that good numbers of watershapers are still making fundamental errors in their design and construction -- including some problems he seeks to address with a few helpful tips.

Edge-Wall Essentials

Vanishing-edge walls have been a common design detail for the past 25-odd years and have been the subject of seminars and workshops almost as long as I can remember. Still, it's clear that there are several key points about how they should be designed and installed that elude watershapers who persist in treating these key structural components as little more than glorified in-pool spa dam walls or some other internal detail. You can probably

Straight and Narrow

As I've intimated many times in these Travelogues, I'm a big fan of small water. I like rain chains. I prefer narrow scuppers to wide sheet falls. I like waterfalls with flows the diameter of my thumb rather than the span of a grand, old tree. What I like most of all these days are described as rills or runnels - little channels that artfully

He was called in to help with a spa, but Brian Van Bower ended up pitching in with three watershapes in all -- each of which offered unique hydraulic challenges and all of which contributed to creating an elegant, water-defined penthouse space overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Translucent Beauty

It's a great time to be a watershaper. With so many talented designers out there, it's a world in which it's increasingly common to rush past conventional boundaries and deliver projects that delight the eye, warm the spirits and bring smiles to the faces of those lucky enough to enjoy them. There are extraordinarily skillful builders and subcontractors out there as well - people whose ability and determination are

Nothing But Net

In summers long past, I'd come home from work, get into my swimming trunks, grab the newspaper and a cooling beverage and head for the pool. On some days, I was left on my own for an hour's worth of drifting on my big float, not a care in the world. Before putting the cover back on the pool, I'd swim a couple dozen short laps and tend to any