architecture
I'm steadily reminded of one key point: No matter how talented any one of us might be, the work ultimately is not about us. For intensely creative people equipped with the necessary measures of self-confidence and ego, that point can be tough to accept and absorb, but it's true: For all our skills, we nonetheless work with our clients' visions, and the reality is that creating sympathetic designs for them takes time, patience and lots of effort. As a result, I'm passionate about uncovering what my clients are truly after in their garden and watershape designs. It's an investment of time and energy at the onset of the relationship that always
While discussing his column for this issue, I visited one of David Tisherman's projects and observed one of the most dramatic examples I've ever seen of the
Water moving in all sorts of different directions (but always in controlled ways) is a hallmark of one our favorite designers, architect David Tardiff. We've built the watershapes for many of his projects, and we've particularly enjoyed those that put both his vigor and special subtlety on display. Time and again, his designs have challenged us technically while rewarding our clients with results that always seem to leave them proud, amazed and thoroughly satisfied. As we've discussed in our previous WaterShapes articles, a large part of our business is about executing watershapes for architects and landscape architects in the backyards of mostly affluent clients in southern California's Orange County. Each designer has his or her own creative style and sensibility, leaving us to adapt the work we do to their "idea sets" while lending our years of practical experience in engineering and construction to the process. In working this way, we find that everyone comes out a winner: The designer creates work that is based in reality; we stretch and expand our skills to realize truly spectacular design concepts; and most important, clients gain refined spaces that hit the mark with respect to both functionality and aesthetics. The two projects we'll visit on these pages are
For more than two full years, this project was my personal and professional obsession. It all started in 1993, when my client, a wealthy recording-industry magnate, called on me to design the landscape for a property he'd just acquired in Bel Air, one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The Spanish Colonial-style home had been built in the 1920s and was in a sad state of disrepair. By the time I arrived, it had been gutted to the studs, and very nearly all of the hardscape and plantings around the house had been torn out as well. What he was offering me was a tantalizingly blank canvas in a most spectacular setting. In the two years that followed, not only would we
Amazing things can happen when great architects think beyond the walls and tackle exterior design as part of their projects. That's a message that comes through loud and clear and repeatedly in Susan Zevon's Outside Architecture (Rockport Publishers, 1999). Throughout the book's 190 generously illustrated pages, she covers the work of 18 architects - using multiple examples from each while focusing not so much on individual projects but rather on key features, styles and design philosophies that cut across the range of the fine work on display. About three quarters of the projects are residential and range stylistically from classic to modern at locations scattered across the United States and Mexico. Nearly all of the architects were new
A paperback edition of Francis D.K. Ching's book, Architecture: Forms, Space and Order, had been sitting on my desk for less than a day when my colleague and friend Mark Webb spotted it and became pretty animated. He started talking about the book in a way that made it seem it was a given that we both should be completely familiar with it. I had, in fact, just picked up my copy at a used bookstore without ever having heard of Ching or knowing anything about his highly influential body of work. I soon learned that Webb and many other architecture and landscape architecture students (beyond yours truly) read Ching's work early on in their studies. Feeling as though I'd missed out on something important in my education, I dove into the text and soon came to understand why my friend
Great watershaping is, we believe, all about creating forms within a context. The thoughtful watershaper will survey all the key elements of a project while conjuring a mental picture that's as close to the architect's vision as possible - and then base the work that follows on a solid understanding of both the design and the setting. It's always most exciting when we're asked to consult with the designer about a project before the lot has been graded and the ideas are still flowing onto the sketchpad. In those cases where the designer and homeowner are all the same person and those initial discussions involve the designer's own living space, the nature of this interaction can truly be something special. At Pure Water Pools, we've had such a privilege on two occasions, both in working with Lynn Pries, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based interior designer who has spent much of her career creating high-end residences across the United States and Europe. These days, she mostly works on one project at a time, carefully selecting and purchasing a property herself and then seeing to every design detail, inside and out, from start to finish. So far, we've built
If you feel the same need I do to explore the vast and inspiring reaches of 20th-century structural forms, The Oral History of Modern Architecture by John Peter is a wonderful and enduring resource. Published in 1994 by Harry N. Abrams (New York), this text features more than 100 interviews with modern architects, including in-depth discussions conducted by the author with a group he defines as the "Top Ten" masters of modern architecture. The interviews were conducted in the stretch from 1953 to 1989, and several audio excerpts are provided on a CD that comes as a companion to the printed transcripts. And it's quite a roster of luminaries, including
No matter how it's used - as a focal point in a design or as just another feature balanced among many - the thoughtful use of water offers landscape architects and other watershape designers a huge range of aesthetic opportunities. Indeed, the water's texture, reflectivity, sounds and sculptural qualities can all be used to enhance the observer's experience as he or she moves through an environment, and in a near-infinite number of ways. Regardless of how familiar one becomes with these attributes and using them in built spaces, the presence of water in a design often yields something new, interesting and even unexpected. Whether you use it as a visual transition, a physical destination, an expression of nature or an architectural statement, water is
'Project of a lifetime" may not be enough to describe our work at Cima del Mundo. If you'll recall, the hilltop home had experienced many changes since its original construction in 1925, including service as a makeshift monastery as well as a stretch of years in which the property was abandoned and
