concrete
No matter the method by which it is applied, concrete is a fascinating material. The history books tell us that it's been in use for thousands of years - as far back as 6500 BC, when it was used by Bedouins to make cisterns in which they collected and kept water underground in desert climates. The ancient Greeks used concrete, too, as did the Assyrians and especially
EcoFinish (Warminster, PA) produces AquaBright, a thermo-polymer interior finish for swimming pools. Designed for quick…
When I started my pond company as a teenager in 2002, I had no clear idea how Laughing Waters (Palos Heights, Ill.) would evolve in subsequent years. At the time my first article appeared in WaterShapes in 2007, I was basically a 22-year-old bundle of energy with more ambition than experience. In the decade since then, our energy has become more focused, the company has grown to take on a full range of major residential and commercial projects and, with experience, our ambition has
It was a great project: The client called us in to look at a sloping backyard for which his one and only wish was an environment that would be "organic and pre-existing" - that is, a composition that looked as though it had been there forever, long before the adjacent home entered the picture. That sort of look is our stock in trade at Outdoor Republic, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based firm that specializes in the use of artificial rock. As is often the case, we became involved after the homeowner had
'If there's one thing about the watershaping world that continuously drives me crazy,' wrote David Tisherman in his Details column in March 2006, 'it's the existence and persistence of a sub-professional mindset that says creative designs and affluent clients deserve one set of standards, while projects with more affordable designs can acceptably be built to another, less stringent set of standards. 'To me, middle-class clients who've commissioned modest projects
Aquron (Rockwall, TX) offers I-Deck, a seamless, monolithic, UV-resistant elastomeric coating designed to preserve the…
Working on a large-scale project is a challenge when it happens even ten miles from your home base: Big jobs are just plain tough. But building that same project 150 miles away? That takes the difficulty to another level - and when you mix in an extremely difficult, environmentally sensitive site, it can feel as though you're operating on another planet. A case in point can be found in our participation in a design/build project on a remote cottage estate in the stunning
