design intent
It's not often that an opportunity to work on anything as renowned as the Neptune Pool comes around. Built first as a reflecting pool, transformed into an oval-shaped plunge pool and, as Hearst Castle assumed massive proportions, ultimately finished as a 350,000-gallon swimming pool that's probably the most widely recognized watershape in the world, it's a pleasure just to see it, let alone help preserve it for future generations. We at Terracon, an engineering firm based in Olathe, Kans., came to the project through our acquisition late in 2014 of Rowley International, the aquatic design and engineering company based in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif. William Rowley, its principal and a specialist in sophisticated aquatic complexes - and, equally important
As the fields of landscape architecture and watershaping intermingle, the knowledge bases for each trade increasingly need to be shared across various design, engineering and construction disciplines. That sharing, unfortunately, has been relatively slow to develop, which means that, as a designer and builder and of custom high-end watershape and landscape projects, I am often frustrated by the lack of detail I find in plans and specifications generated on all levels of the trade. Although this deficiency flows freely from all sectors, the most frequent sources of inadequacy in watershape plans are landscape architects and designers, too many of whom offer information that is disturbingly vague and thoroughly lacking in detail. We've all seen the blue patch on the overhead plan view - a grossly inadequate delineation of a significant design component if ever there was one. Contractors presented with such documentation are left to define specific details themselves and essentially are asked to build some version of that blue patch as they
