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It's not too unusual to replace all of the plumbing, equipment and electrical lines as part of a swimming pool renovation project. It's quite another story, however, when you need to make sure all of it happens without disrupting the deck surrounding the vessel. As mentioned in my last two "Details," that's precisely what we've been asked to do in renovating a 70-year-old pool in the historic Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. The presence of a beautiful, valuable, imported limestone deck means that we've had to do all of our work from inside
The process of designing a watershape or garden usually requires the designer to answer a number of questions - the vast majority of them having to do with seeing the water and the landscape. Indeed, from considerations of color and scale to managing views and ensuring visual interest within the space, much of the designer's skill is ultimately experienced by clients and visitors with their eyes. But what if your client is blind or wheelchair-bound or both? How do you design for them? What colors do you use in your planting design? Would you even care about color? How will they move through the space and what experiences will await them? What would be the most important sensory evocation - sound, fragrance or texture? These are the sorts of special questions we asked ourselves after being approached by clients who had the desire to create a sensory garden for visually impaired and physically handicapped people. The experience shed a whole new light on the power of non-visual aesthetics and prompted me to
Last time, I described a series of unfortunate revelations that complicated the early stages of an elaborate pool renovation project in Malibu, Calif. By the time all of those enormous structural issues had been addressed, the pool project had been on hold for about six months. When we finally returned to the site to resume our work, we were greeted by a "courtyard" that was basically a neat, seven-foot-deep hole surrounded by a beautiful home in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the country. Although the most significant of the troubles were now behind us, the tasks that followed were far from simple. In the intervening six months, my clients had
Let me introduce you to an exciting project I've been working on most of this year. Right from the top, I'll say that even in the realm of the unique and rarified, this one is truly amazing. The clients are quite well-to-do, and the moment you walk into their home, you can't help recognizing that they are accomplished art collectors with an eye for modern masters as well as folk art. Their beachfront Malibu, Calif., home - one of
It's one of the most famous buildings in the world, but few people know that Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fallingwater in a matter of hours. In 1935, when Wright first received the commission to design and build a vacation home for Pittsburgh retail tycoon Edgar J. Kaufman and his family in Mill Run, Pa., he didn't get to the project right away. After several months of preliminary discussions and delays, Kaufman decided to force the issue, telephoning the architect and saying that he was going to visit Wright's studio to see what had been done. It was at that point Wright decided he'd better design the house. He had a weekend. The construction process was no more direct, but it took longer. Work began in 1936 and was completed by 1939 in a series of costly fits and starts. The project was originally set to cost in the neighborhood of $40,000, but the final tally rose to nearly ten times that amount - not inconsiderable in post-Depression America. The result of the dramatic (and, at times, traumatic) process of design and construction is nothing less than one of the greatest achievements in American architecture, a work so compelling that it never stops
It's one of the most famous buildings in the world, but few people know that Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fallingwater in a matter of hours. In 1935, when Wright first received the commission to design and build a vacation home for Pittsburgh retail tycoon Edgar J. Kaufman and his family in Mill Run, Pa., he didn't get to the project right away. After several months of preliminary discussions and delays, Kaufman decided to force the issue, telephoning the architect and saying that he was going to visit Wright's studio to see what had been done. It was at that point Wright decided he'd better design the house. He had a weekend. The construction process was no more direct, but it took longer. Work began in 1936 and was completed by 1939 in a series of costly fits and starts. The project was originally set to cost in the neighborhood of $40,000, but the final tally rose to nearly ten times that amount - not inconsiderable in post-Depression America. The result of the dramatic (and, at times, traumatic) process of design and construction is nothing less than one of the greatest achievements in American architecture, a work so compelling that it never stops
