construction

2013/7.1, July 10 — A Hilltop Masterpiece, Avoiding Design Mistakes, Going Pondless and more
                             July 10, 2013        …
Sliding into Backyard Waterparks, Part 2
The feature clients like most about custom pool slides – particularly those of the modular variety – is their tremendous flexibility:  The average slide is about 15 feet long, but the sky truly is the limit, with elaborate installations stretching out across 30 or 40 feet in length.  Slopes are generously variable as well, but there are obvious space considerations that come into play with larger-scale projects.  A good rule of thumb for a desirable 20-degree slope:  Every foot built up vertically generally requires about three feet of horizontal build-out. Obviously, this means that space availability is a major factor in slide design and construction.  The great thing is, the basic procedures of slide installation do not vary much with size, so the process, once learned, is pretty straightforward and repeatable. Here, we’ll be focusing on what this means with
Special Ponds, Special Purpose
We at The Pond Digger Waterscape Design & Construction do a lot of our business locally, and we’ve always found value and satisfaction in giving back to the communities we serve. Back in 2002, we started Ponds for Schools, a curriculum-based program in which we work with administrators, teachers and students to set up “outdoor waterscape classrooms” for use throughout the year.  This enables teachers to expand their lesson plans into the great outdoors, and we’ve heard about
2013/6.1, June 5 — Angular Vanishing Edges, Ponds for Schools, Backyard Waterparks and more
                             June 5, 2013        …
2013/5.2, May 22 — Cantilevered Beauty, Dispelling a Water-Treatment Myth, Chicago’s Signature Fountain and more
                             May 22, 2013        …
The Birth of a Dream
It’s speculated that the exterior spaces at Playboy Mansion West must be the most photographed in the world.   That’s hard to quantify, of course, but it’s certainly safe to say that since construction began in the 1970s, the home of publisher Hugh Hefner and its famous swimming pool and grotto have been used ceaselessly to promote
A Pool Buyer’s Guide, Part 2
Once you’re as well informed as you can be about the business practices of the companies that might end up designing and installing your swimming pool, the hard work of the decision-making process begins.  It’s time, in other words, to bring a few of your candidate companies in, ask them to look things over and, ultimately, request bids for the work to be done. A quick heads up:  The prices are going to be all over the map, and that’s because, if you’ve done things the way most homeowners will do, you’ve set up a situation in which
A Crowning Achievement (pdf version)
In July last year, the city of Chicago unveiled its newest civic landmark:  Millennium Park, a world-class artistic and architectural extravaganza in the heart of downtown. At a cost of more than $475 million and in a process that took more than six years to complete, the park transformed a lakefront space once marked by unsightly railroad tracks and ugly parking lots into a civic showcase. The creation of the 24.5-acre park brought together an unprecedented collection of
#3: Finger Ledge
Among all of the details included in residential swimming pools and spas, some of the most apparent and most easily explained have to do with safety.  But that doesn’t mean that homeowners will get the idea on their own – especially when they confront a detail as subtly useful as