access
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
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
Inter-Fab (Tucson, AZ) manufactures a complete line of pool and spa stair and hand railings…
Why don't more of us know how to swim? As I've discussed in several of my blogs through the past few months, I'm a firm believer that everyone should master this basic and essential survival skill. As fervently, I believe that encouraging comfort in and around water is the key to watershaping's future: Without it, why
I'm a big fan of beach entries: As I see it, they wrap at least five important design and usage issues up in one neat package. First, they provide easy access to the pool. Second, that access is gradual, which many bathers prefer. Third, they bring a bit of visual drama to the water's edge - and then repeat it where the slope breaks off into deeper water. Fourth, they create an easy
The current generation of pond designers and installers tends to think big - often very big - and enjoy pursuing projects on large properties in which the basin and its accompanying streams and waterfalls create spaces so naturalistic that it seems like the water's been there forever. That's a noble goal - and one I pursue frequently in my projects for
I've written a couple of my recent blogs about public pools, access to them, their cost, their status and my growing concern that, for a complex of reasons, swimming skills and our basic societal inclination to be water-involved is slowly moving onto the cultural version of the endangered species list. It's in this context that I call your attention to
