construction
Looking for inspiration in an urban environment can leave a designer with precious few useful references. Take downtown Chicago, for example, where our indigenous waterfeature is Lake Michigan and our public art is too often plopped in the middle of concrete plazas. Be that as it may, I do my part by trying to introduce both water and art into my projects. So I was thrilled to be retained by Mary O'Shaughnessy, owner of the Wood Street Gallery in Chicago, to design a sculpture garden. I knew it would give me the chance to create a balanced, beautiful space - even though I also knew the job wouldn't be easy. What she wanted was a garden environment in which she could display and sell contemporary American sculpture - a place that would help clients visualize the way the art might look in their own gardens. As we dug deeper, we uncovered additional goals: It needed to be a space that would accommodate a changing variety and number of pieces; it had to be functional for large parties; and it had to incorporate and acknowledge the garden's urban neighborhood while still providing a sense of enclosure for gallery visitors (and, of course,
Contrary to the impression that might be given by the headline, this isn't an article about building arbors that are safe. Rather, it's about how you can protect your clients and their guests from the sun by building beautiful structures in their yards. (Safety is part of the discussion, too, but not its focus.) I bring this up because many clients put piles of money into building spectacular pools but fail to give much thought to their surroundings. That's a shame, because those surroundings almost certainly will be seen much more than the pools will be used in the course of the average year. Several things need to be
In February 1999, the cover photo on the premiere issue of WaterShapes showed a steel cage for a subgrade piling being lowered into the ground. That image was taken from a feature article by designer/builder David Tisherman, the first of many that he has contributed to the magazine. In that article and in another that followed in April 1999, he detailed the design and construction of an elaborate residential swimming pool project that he
It's natural for me to wax poetic about my work. Gardening and garden designs are what I call my "magnificent obsession" - so much so that the other arts in which I have an interest and for which I even have talent will generally take a back seat. After more than 19 years as a professional landscape designer, I am still driven and excited by the challenge of creating comprehensive landscapes for my clients. I thrive on the complexity of organizing the myriad elements required to create outdoor spaces that function properly, are beautiful and harmonious to the eye - and even touch
Of all the sports, there's none that relies more on the art of landscaping than golf. The contours of the land, the style, size and placement of plantings, the use of elaborate stonework and the installation of substantial bodies of water often define not only the competitive challenge of the game but the ambiance and character of the entire golfing experience. This is especially true of championship golf courses, where designers seek ways to stretch the envelope in terms of the way the game is played and in the physical beauty of the courses themselves. In their search for true distinction, many have turned to the use of
I like a good challenge in my work, and I like to have fun making it happen. This project embodied the best of both experiences. The project displayed on these pages was built for a wealthy client who lives on a working horse ranch in the rolling green countryside near Ocala, Fla. Our company, Certified Construction, was up to the task. We build hundreds of highly customized watershapes each year for a variety of theme parks, resorts and high-end residences. Most have highly developed "themes," so we're accustomed to providing our clients with heavy doses of imagination and creativity. The basic marching orders on this job were straightforward: The owner wanted a theme park on his property for his kids - and he didn't really care about
At our firm, we treat every project and every customer as if they're one of a kind - which in truth they are. And we've been lucky in developing a high-end clientele that, on the whole, is looking for something special: They enable us to treat each project as an individual work of art; at the same time, they challenge us to stretch our own abilities and increase the variety of design solutions we bring to the drafting table. In many cases, this requires something of balancing act between what clients think they're after and the practicalities of the site itself, the architecture of adjoining structures and the views of surrounding areas. For that reason, each of our
For me, the simplicity and elegance of the International Style was just about the best thing going in 20th-century design. The followers of Walter Gropius in the Bauhaus movement held this simplicity - expressed as a cleanness of line, a uniformity of materials and the establishment of clear relationships among architectural planes - in absolutely the highest regard. I always try to integrate these design principles into my own work - and one of the ways I do so is through the ledger detail we'll examine this time around. It's an expensive
As a designer and artist, I believe that water and glass walk hand in hand: Both are transparent and translucent. They distort and reflect surrounding colors and forms. And depending upon whom you ask, water and glass are both liquids. The visual and physical resonance between these two fascinating materials is important to me: I know that their interplay adds an entirely different dimension to my work that enhances the effects I can achieve using glass, metal and ceramics, so I'm always eager to explore artistic solutions when my customers want the project to include water. In this article, I'll examine three of my projects that use water to accentuate and reflect the sculpture while providing the soothing sounds that create an overall feeling of peacefulness in the surrounding space. But first, a bit more about what I do - and how I do it. AHEAD OF THE GLASS As with many forms of sculpture, working with glass requires technical know-how and, like many modern artists, I have acquired a background in construction and fabrication techniques. Back in school my
Whether you build fountains, streams or Olympic-size swimming pools, you need to install a pump of some kind to make these watershapes work. As fundamental and essential as pumps really are, however, it's amazing to think how casual many of us in the trade are when it comes to knowing about how they work and how their performance characteristics differ. We've all heard and used terms like "energy efficient," "high head" and "self-priming," but for the most part, the real meanings of those words get lost in the competitive marketing blizzard that surrounds these products. Without a clear understanding of how pumps are designed and how they do their job, these distinctions are no more than words on a label - and that's not the way it should be. As watershapes become ever more complex and hydraulically challenging, cutting through the hype to find out what truly makes pumps work becomes even more important: No matter how beautiful a design may be, without a properly selected and installed pump working at the heart of the system, the best work will fall short in
