Digging for Insight

For the best part of 20 years now, trend watchers have tracked Baby Boomers and have kept telling us that, as we aged, we’d definitely become homebodies – so much so that the words “nesting,” “cocooning” and “staycation” have all taken significant places in our social vocabulary.

It’s a concept I’ve touched upon in these pages – numerous times, in fact – while observing that watershapes and other aquatic amenities go hand in glove with the homebody trend. Always, my basic point has been: It’s time to think in terms of providing our Boomer clients with complete outdoor environments that will make their home experience as pleasurable as they could ever want it to be.

So far, I haven’t read any studies of just how thoroughly the homebody phenomenon has truly manifested itself and whether or not it is as real as some would have us believe. That’s too bad, but it hasn’t gotten in my way: I’ve seen for myself what’s happening and, although it’s the product of my own observations and anecdotes I’ve heard from others, I think my perspective is valid.

As I see it, not only has the prediction that more and more people will want to stay home and take their vacations at home actually come to pass, but it has done so on a much more extensive and pervasive scale than any of us would have dared to believe ten or 15 years ago.

ALL IN ONE

I’ve reached this conclusion because of what the preponderance of my Boomer-vintage clients have consistently been telling me – and, more important, how what they are saying is reflected in their purchasing decisions.

In one way or another, many of them have indicated that they want all of the luxuries of a resort property in their own backyards. Even though they definitely can afford to travel, they tell me that they increasingly prefer the safe, familiar, convenient trappings of home, especially if the environment provides a fun place for kids to play as they grow and, eventually, as they start having children of their own.

I suspect this demographic trend has a lot to do with why many of the custom watershapers I know have continued to thrive in this dreary economy. When you add in the weakness of the dollar and the fact that overseas vacations are more expensive than they once were, people seem to prefer investing their recreational dollars in something unique that provides greater and longer-lasting value.

I believe that cable television has played a role here in the form of HGTV and other home-improvement-oriented channels. So have magazine racks, through the proliferation of publications targeting consumers interested in home improvement, regional styles and upscale living. It’s clear to me that prospective clients are spurred as well by memories of places they’ve been: When you couple that with inspiring images of lavish spaces seen in the media, the upshot is that they’re keenly interested in bringing similar slices of the good life to their own backyards.

It also hasn’t hurt that creativity in the watershaping and landscaping markets has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years, at least on the custom side of the business. Not to go overboard with self-congratulation, but the fact that many of us have expanded our thinking in terms of design possibilities has helped bring greater ranges of choice to clients in ways that have no doubt driven far more expansive and inclusive designs.

Finally, I’ve found that consumers, particularly those investing in custom watershapes, are much more sophisticated than they once were when it comes to knowing what they want – which brings me to a point where I’ll resume the discussion about client contact I began in the last issue and the methods I use to elicit information that will help me succeed for them in the design process.

Last time, if you’ll recall, I covered approaches to interviewing clients and described my own interview technique as something that is constantly growing and evolving in response to what I learn from other watershapers as well as my clients. I also outlined some broad ideas of what I was after, which will lead me this time to narrow the focus and suggest some ways of digging even deeper into clients’ wants and needs.

FUTURE MEMORIES

As mentioned last time, I start by asking clients why we’re meeting and maneuver the conversation around to asking them how they visualize using a watershape. Armed with that basic information, I start to hone in on their more specific likes and dislikes and a range of other considerations as I prompt them to visualize, imagine and desire.

Here are some of the questions I use to ferret out the information I need:

[ ] Have you ever had a pool before? If yes, what did you like about it – and what didn’t you like? The answers here can be tremendously revealing. You might, for example, discover that the clients enjoyed nothing so much as swimming laps, lounging in the shade near the water’s edge or diving into the deep end at the end of a long day at work. On the flip side, you might learn that they were disgusted by the smell of chlorine, didn’t like the way pool plaster felt on their feet or hated having to pay attention to water chemistry.

I’ve found that this single question reveals a great deal about their water-related experiences and dials in on specific issues in the context of a lifetime’s spectrum of memories, some good and some not so good. In fact, even if their initial answer is “No, never had a pool,” almost everyone can conjure feelings about watershapes from the well of memory and give me ideas and images I can use in getting them to visualize the project at hand.

[ ] How important to you is the visual aspect of the design? Of all the visualization-prompting questions I ask, this one really seems to do the trick with many of my clients. I’ve always been surprised by how many of them will say that they really don’t care about how their watershape will look; instead, they’re all about how it will function and say that so long as it’s not an eyesore, they’ll be all right with it.

Of course, many of them just start out that way because they’ve never really visualized anything beyond swimming in a pool or sitting in a spa or watching a waterfall: When they begin to visualize things in the context of their own backyards, many of them come around to the aesthetic side of the process and start caring about how things will look. Not all of them make this transition, of course, but most will.

Then there are those who are entirely about aesthetics, don’t care much about function and are mostly interested in making a statement. That’s when I ask, “How big a statement?” In some cases, I learn that their primary desire is to impress other people with the lavishness of the details or the fineness of the materials, while in others they let me know that they want the watershape to reflect their tastes in art and architecture in all sorts of subtle ways.

[ ] Do you swim? How important to you is aquatic exercise? In my last column, I wrote about asking clients to visualize how they’ll use their watershape, so in many cases I already know the quick answer to these questions. But if anything they’ve said makes me doubt the clarity with which they’re considering how they’ll use a swimming pool or spa, I hit them with these questions to find out whether or not they intend on swimming, exercising or engaging in a specific activity such as diving, volleyball or water polo.

In other words, while they may have mentioned swimming at the outset, with this question I get them to focus on the physical aspects of owning a watershape – and often the answers are much more detailed and nuanced now, especially when it comes to the subject of exercise.

Along with the cocooning trend among Baby Boomers, it’s clear that consumers near or beyond retirement age have turned to exercise routines and pursuit of physical fitness in a big way to fight aging and improve the quality of their lives. There’s also growing evidence (reported in detail in past issues of WaterShapes) about the profound health benefits of aquatic exercise, and I’m prepared to offer that information to reinforce my clients’ thoughts about its value.

Along those lines, I’ve also become versed in the use of devices including underwater treadmills, swim jets and other fitness-related features. If clients get interested, we start talking about zones and organizing areas for different activities, from diving to water sports and hydrotherapy. Some people get deeply, emotionally involved with their watershapes at this point, and it all makes sense: They’ve started visualizing a healthy lifestyle in relation to an aquatic environment, and it all feels good.

[ ] Do you entertain? Again, this may have been answered back when I asked about intended use, but as with the exercise questions, I’ve found that deeper inquiry here a bit later in the conversation can be quite beneficial to the process.

As a social animal myself, I’m often surprised in speaking with people who say they don’t entertain at all. For the most part, however, I find that people increasingly have highly developed ideas about the entertaining they have in mind. To be sure, developing designs for outdoor entertaining is a huge topic that could be (and probably will be) the subject of future columns. It covers a vast range of subjects focused on space allocation and amenities ranging from outdoor kitchens and pizza ovens to seating areas and outdoor sound and video systems – so suffice it to say here that when clients express interest in entertaining, you can delve deeply into what they want and need through this question.

[ ] Do you sunbathe? This may seem an odd question at a time when people are increasingly paranoid about exposing themselves to the sun, but there are still people out there who like to bask and work on their tans. If the clients prove to be tanning enthusiasts, accommodating them is a simple matter of designating part of the design as a sunbathing area.

Perhaps more important, if the answer you get here is negative in its attitude about sun exposure, it leads you directly to an important follow-up question:

[ ] What are your thoughts on shade? Even sun worshipers, of course, need refuge from the sun from time to time. In fact, addressing the need for shade should be a universal component in our projects, but that’s not what I’ve observed in the field.

Shade structures these days are truly marvelous, and in many cases I’d even categorize them as sculptural works of art. They can be relatively small, covering a limited part of a patio, or they can be expansive to the point where whole rigging systems are used to shade entire bodies of water with retractable awnings or screens.

Umbrellas are another wonderful option that comes into play, and clients seem to like them because they can easily be moved from place to place. These days, in fact, we’re often asked to design pool areas with multiple umbrella sleeves to maximize flexibility in shade management around and sometimes within the watershape.

This discussion also leads to another question:

[ ] Have you thought about a shallow lounging area in the water? How about a raised seating area next to the water? By this point, you should already have a good sense of how or if your clients plan to socialize in or around the water, but experience once again has shown me that relatively few of them are aware of what can be done these days with shallow lounging areas, beach entries, raised-edge seating areas, step treatments and raised planter edges.

I’ve noticed as well that there are large numbers of people who love being near the water or in partial contact with it while staying completely or mostly dry. Grandparents, for example, often enjoy having a convenient place to lounge while watching the grandkids play nearby. And there are those people who don’t swim but like being in contact with the water without complete immersion.

On that level, this question adds depth and new meaning to discussions you’ve already had about entertaining. In my experience, if I explain and illustrate these features and get my clients to visualize them, it’s yet another way to get them to buy into the process on a whole new range of emotional and physical levels.

ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING

If you read between the lines of what I’ve written in these two columns, my meaning is clear: When you prompt your clients to look forward and see how they’ll interact with the environment you’re discussing, the better you’ll be able to engage them in the process, meet their needs and make dreams come true – even dreams they might not have known they could have.

What I try to do through the entire interview process is to make my questions or lines of follow-up questions open-ended, because there’s no telling where your clients will lead you if you give them the latitude to do so.

In opening things up, you might run into someone who’s obsessed with water temperature, for example, and spend a good bit of time discussing various options for maintaining it at just the right level. You might find environmentalists who want their systems to be as green and sustainable as possible. You might find people who are so good at the visualization process and so adept at working through options that the design process will fly by.

Again, it’s all about getting them to open up, and I’ve found through the years that a deliberate interview process is the best way to get it done so long as I listen well and establish a decent rapport.

As I see it, this approach to interviewing is enjoyably hard work, often comes with surprises and involves conversational techniques that can be applied across the board in discussions of pools, spas, fountains, lighting systems, deck systems, outdoor amenities, outbuildings and much, much more.

This is where being at the cutting edge of the exterior design business gets to be a great deal of fun. Opening clients’ eyes to the wonders of laminar jets, waterfalls and streams; to the joys of quiet water in the form of reflecting pools or ponds; to materials of all types and descriptions; to control technology, water-in-transit systems and fire elements – it makes me happy just to think about what can be accomplished with the right clients in the right circumstances.

I always remind myself that we’re in the business of providing venues for human experience – an incredibly important responsibility for us and a very personal commitment from the homeowners with whom we work. To get things right, we owe it to them to help them visualize a better future: All it takes is a clear mind, open ears and a little list of questions.

Brian Van Bower runs Aquatic Consultants, a design firm based in Miami, Fla., and is a co-founder of the Genesis 3 Design Group; dedicated to top-of-the-line performance in aquatic design and construction, this organization conducts schools for like-minded pool designers and builders. He can be reached at [email protected].