ARTICLES Archives - Page 92 of 314

Don’t Forget the Cupcakes

This is my second Travelogue in a row that has resulted from a chance encounter. Last time, a visit to a Seattle-area green space with a big swingset led me to discover the water system at Downtown Bellevue Park; this time, a rendezvous for lunch with an old friend confronted me with the fountain at the Americana at Brand, a mixed-use

Watching pH

What happens when the water added to a newly plastered pool has had a chance to interact fully with its new surroundings? That's a big question, writes Kim Skinner -- one that has implications for the long-term appearance and maintenance of countless watershapes.

With winter slowly ending, Barry Justus knew that he had no time to spare in converting this homeowner's dream of a personal five-star resort into a multi-watershape, party-ready reality. This included the hidden slide and the vanishing television -- all on a rigid deadline.

Racing to the Finish Line

For most residents of southeastern Canada, the winter of 2013/2014 was memorable for off-the-hook low temperatures, plenty of snow and lots of discomfort. For me and my crew, however, what we'll recall most is how hard we worked right through the teeth of the inclement weather to make a huge project deliverable by its May 2014 deadline. As was reported in the first article of this

A Timely Proposition

I grinned from ear to ear a couple weeks ago while reading a press release from the National Swimming Pool Foundation. It was about a request for proposals to create a "Learn-to-Swim Index" - a system designed to track how many people are completing formal swimming lessons in the United States - and I'm still smiling today. What NSPF is after, I believe, is

When a client approaches a designer with something specific in mind, working out project parameters can be a challenge. But in this case, writes Steve Sandalis, the homeowner offered guidance for a backyard pond that was more than welcomed -- and inspired indeed.

Lofty Inspiration

With some watershaping projects, homeowners enter the process with a very specific vision in mind. This can, of course, be problematic if their thinking doesn't align with the character of the site or the extent of the available budget. With this project, however, the clients' deep-seated desires were never an issue. In fact, the space the clients envisioned had a source of inspiration so sublime - and the property was so well suited to the desired look - that there was no reason even to question how things would turn out. The clients live in a large home in San Marino, Calif., just a couple blocks away from

Faced by a firm deadline and the realities of over-winter construction in Canada, Barry Justus knew he had little time to spare -- and a whole lot to accomplish in a few short months if he was to have any hope of completing a grand-scale project in time for a springtime party.

Against the Clock

Living and working on a part of the globe where the winters are severe is almost balanced by how hospitable the weather generally can be for the rest of the year. That, of course, is something we count on as watershapers in the Canadian marketplace: The joy of leaving winter weather behind is something our clients fully appreciate, so much so that they're willing to go the distance with

#24: Rain Curtain

This is one of those cases where, from a design perspective, I said just about everything I wanted to say about rain-curtain effects in the video linked below. They look great, they sound even better and my clients love them. So what else is there to consider? Well,

Hearing Voices

'In all of the discussions in print and in seminar rooms about advancing the watershaping trades,' declared Brian Van Bower in opening his Aqua Culture column in WaterShapes' July 2006 issue, 'it seems to me there's been a missing voice - that of the client. 'We spend lots of time dissecting, praising, disputing, criticizing and encouraging one another, but somehow we seem to have bypassed the thought that

The Power of a Pool

Through the past couple years, I've followed with great and growing interest a collection of news items about international efforts to bring safe, spacious swimming facilities to urban waterways. If memory serves, the first stories I noticed were about the Flussbad ("river pool"), a proposal to transform a section of a canal into a

Urban Bliss

I recently spent several weeks in Kirkland, Wash., doing what I could to help my daughter and her family prepare for the arrival of our grandson-to-be. One of our outings on a sunny Sunday was to a playground in nearby Bellevue, a place where the cityscape is