art

In Pursuit of Art
  For me and my business in around 2008, this project was a real rite of passage. At that point, pool-construction and shotcrete-application companies like ours were well established and had lineages stretching back to the 1950s. Just the same, we were having a hard time gaining recognition from architects, landscape architects and developers who were pursuing quality, prestige construction. The irony is, my own firm had
Watergardens as Art
It's 1889.   You're at the World's Fair in Paris, what the locals call l'Exposition Universelle du 1889, and you've joined them in marking the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.  The world is changing:  Paris is at the center of those transitions and you want to see for yourself what's going on. You know that the fair has attracted exhibitors from around the world, but you're drawn to France because
2017/10.1, October 4 — Expanding Vision, Watergarden Art, Cascading Splendor and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS October 4, 2017 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…
Design or Art?
I spent a couple strange hours the other day, surfing through Internet references to what I have discovered is a fairly lively Art-versus-Design debate.  What I found was oddly interesting at first, but after a while, I began feeling underwhelmed by the whole discussion, which seemed mostly to be about trying to
2017/7.1, July 12 — Colorado Dreaming, Poolside Flames, Vanishing-Edge Walls and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS July 12, 2017 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…
Adding Up
It was entirely coincidental, but the last edition of the WaterShapes digital newsletter included two of the most popular of all articles ever to appear on our Web site:  Tommy T. Cook's "Casting Nature," which originally appeared in the printed magazine in November 2010; and Scott Cohen's "Beware of Exploding Lava Rocks," which was published exclusively through the newsletter on March 16, 2011. It's easy to recall how popular
Following Lines
Through many years of applying small pieces of tile to the complex sorts of surfaces found in pools, spas and other waterfeatures, I find most of the challenges (and opportunities) come in figuring out intersections - that is, places where planes meet, contours change and, in general, a whole lot of attention needs to be paid to getting things just right visually. We at Rock Solid Tile (Calabasas, Calif.) have been fortunate to find ourselves involved in many projects in which
2017/1.1, January 11 — Contemporary Clarity, Using Bamboo, Navy Pier Magic and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS January 11, 2017 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…
Looking Ahead
Given the tumultuous way in which 2016 came to a close, I figured I'd kick off the New Year by being as upbeat as can be about what the future holds for watershaping.  Two news stories I've followed through the last couple months put me in a suitable frame of mind for this exercise. First up was the hovering
Gardens for People
'Gardens truly are for people.  While that's manifestly an obvious statement,' wrote Bruce Zaretsky at the top of his On the Level column in May 2011, 'it seems to be a concept that insufficient numbers of today's watershape and landscape designers fully grasp.' 'That's nothing new.  More than half a century ago, in fact, [Thomas] Church was motivated to