design development
'Watershaping carries us onto the properties and into the private lives of our clients, and it does so to such a personal, even intimate level,' wrote Brian Van Bower to start his February 2010 Aqua Culture column, 'that I see the value and importance of getting to know them to the best of my ability. Invariably, that means asking the right questions and knowing how to
It may not happen as often as I'd like, but every once in a while a project comes along unexpectedly and turns out to be just fantastic. In this case, I was referred by a pool builder I didn't know to a home designer/builder I didn't know, either. The pool builder had found me via the Internet after the designer/builder had let him know that she was interested in finding a talented pool designer who could help carry her residential projects to a new level. He'd liked what he'd seen on my web
This project was all about fun and finding ways to infuse watershapes and the overall landscape with childlike senses of playfulness and wonder. At a glance, of course, it’s obvious that this particular approach wouldn’t work for too many clients, but in this case, we were working with a woman who wanted her yard to express her love of color, her sense of humor and her unparalleled inclination
Practice makes perfect when it comes to developing the observational skills you need to support your design acumen. As I discussed last month, honing these abilities enables a designer to see individual and collective shapes within a garden setting in ways that can enhance the overall appearance of plant/hardscape combinations and turn them into cohesive and more compelling visual compositions. Among all of those artistic abilities is one specific skill that has served me best and will be my subject in this column: That is, the ability to determine the level of contrast my clients want to see in their garden spaces. As an artist, I've always been inspired by the areas in paintings that display the
