accuracy

Beneath the Shell
It's not often that an opportunity to work on anything as renowned as the Neptune Pool comes around. Built first as a reflecting pool, transformed into an oval-shaped plunge pool and, as Hearst Castle assumed massive proportions, ultimately finished as a 350,000-gallon swimming pool that's probably the most widely recognized watershape in the world, it's a pleasure just to see it, let alone help preserve it for future generations. We at Terracon, an engineering firm based in Olathe, Kans., came to the project through our acquisition late in 2014 of Rowley International, the aquatic design and engineering company based in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif. William Rowley, its principal and a specialist in sophisticated aquatic complexes - and, equally important
2016/9.2, September 21 — Hilltop Staging, Pond Pests, Shimmering Reflections and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS September 21, 2016 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…
Corner Control
With some details, seeing is believing.   That's certainly the case with the one we'll consider in this column, where the images will do much of the work in defining a simple but elegant way of making a statement with any raised bond beam or wall.  Yet again, it's testimonial to the good things that happen when watershapers know how to control materials and infuse their work with visual appeal. Most of the time when pool people build small or medium-size walls, they'll automatically be topped with some form of coping or capstone - anything from poured-in-place concrete or stone to brick or some pre-fabricated coping.  Many of these walls are
Vertical Orientation
When I first entered the watershaping industry in the late 1970s, one of the details to which I took an immediate dislike was the practice of wrapping the tile that covered the walls of raised bond beams around the corner and onto step risers and various other vertical hardscape surfaces found around pools and spas.   We've all seen it - Spanish Colonial Revivalist tiles of questionable authenticity, extra-bold in color and used to cover highly visible vertical surfaces.  To me, these swaths invariably look out of place and have the effect of drawing attention to features that often don't warrant or benefit from the emphasis.   It happens to this day because
Testing Know-How
Even watershapers who don't perform daily tests of water quality in the systems they design and/or build will benefit from being familiar with the various methods available for water analysis, says Michael Gardner of Taylor Technologies.  Such knowledge, he notes, helps in starting up new systems, formulating chemical-treatment regimens, calibrating automatic controllers or simply educating those who'll care for the watershapes you create.
Precision Planning
As the fields of landscape architecture and watershaping intermingle, the knowledge bases for each trade increasingly need to be shared across various design, engineering and construction disciplines.   That sharing, unfortunately, has been relatively slow to develop, which means that, as a designer and builder and of custom high-end watershape and landscape projects, I am often frustrated by the lack of detail I find in plans and specifications generated on all levels of the trade.  Although this deficiency flows freely from all sectors, the most frequent sources of inadequacy in watershape plans are landscape architects and designers, too many of whom offer information that is disturbingly vague and thoroughly lacking in detail.   We've all seen the blue patch on the overhead plan view - a grossly inadequate delineation of a significant design component if ever there was one.  Contractors presented with such documentation are left to define specific details themselves and essentially are asked to build some version of that blue patch as they
21st-Century Drafting
As watershapers, we can look at the rest of the architectural world and see that every other genre is benefiting more than we are from computers. Bridge builders and skyscraper architects use computers to do everything from the simulated testing of three-dimensional structural models to the generation of detailed blueprints to be used on site.  Even the designers of modest housing developments are now using computers to conduct 3-D virtual tours for prospective homebuyers and in specifying floor plans and