education
My love of nature started with a rock collection I had as a child: My fascination with the simple beauty of those small pieces of stone hit me early in life and never left. Several years later, my outlook was dramatically expanded when a wealthy uncle of mine paid to have a formal Japanese garden built for his home in Boulder, Colo. Ever since, I've had a profound appreciation of archetypal Japanese gardens and the way they celebrate nature through landforms, rocks, plants and water. By the time I was in high school, I had already decided that my career was going to involve working outdoors, and from that time forward, my prime interest was in bringing the techniques and disciplines of Japanese gardens into the greater American landscape both where I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. For 30 years now, I've worked as a landscape artist in that region - for 15 years in Portland and for the last 15 in Eugene, Ore. Although many of my designs are not what you could describe as "Japanese gardens" per se, everything I do is informed and influenced by those traditions. I bear no grudge of any sort against the beauty of gardens in the Western European tradition, but to my mind, there's nothing in landscape design that harmonizes more seamlessly with nature than
It's true for any subject that it's basically impossible to teach and learn about a topic unless there's a shared set of terms that everyone understands and can agree about what they mean. I've thought about that fact a lot in developing a course for university students about watershaping, or what I'm most often calling "water architecture" these days. With watershaping as a subject, that sounds simple enough. After all, we all know the meaning of "swimming pool," "fountain" and "pond." Or do we? I'm not so sure anymore. When I started breaking down our vocabulary for classroom use, I quickly recognized that the meanings of the words we use are anything but clear. Indeed, the more I dug into this seemingly simple phase of curriculum development, the murkier things became.The difficulty I ran into was this: Once I moved past the most rudimentary sets of terms and definitions and looked closely at the language we use to describe what we produce, it became painfully obvious to me that
It's true for any subject that it's basically impossible to teach and learn about a topic unless there's a shared set of terms that everyone understands and can agree about what they mean. I've thought about that fact a lot in developing a course for university students about watershaping, or what I'm most often calling "water architecture" these days. With watershaping as a subject, that sounds simple enough. After all, we all know the meaning of "swimming pool," "fountain" and "pond." Or do we? I'm not so sure anymore. When I started breaking down our vocabulary for classroom use, I quickly recognized that the meanings of the words we use are anything but clear. Indeed, the more I dug into this seemingly simple phase of curriculum development, the murkier things became.The difficulty I ran into was this: Once I moved past the most rudimentary sets of terms and definitions and looked closely at the language we use to describe what we produce, it became painfully obvious to me that
Custom watershapers need to understand materials. That's not a new message by any means, but the fact of the matter is that many of the watershapers I encounter have yet to fully embrace the vast range of material options available in today's marketplace. The reason for that is, I think, quite simple: Locating new materials and amassing a library of unique offerings for clients can be a full-time job unto itself. All too often, this makes it easier to rely on familiar sources and options instead of doing the work of finding new ones. I know from personal experience that the work can be
Custom watershapers need to understand materials. That's not a new message by any means, but the fact of the matter is that many of the watershapers I encounter have yet to fully embrace the vast range of material options available in today's marketplace. The reason for that is, I think, quite simple: Locating new materials and amassing a library of unique offerings for clients can be a full-time job unto itself. All too often, this makes it easier to rely on familiar sources and options instead of doing the work of finding new ones. I know from personal experience that the work can be
With spring upon us, calendars of local events are filling up with garden tours of all shapes and sizes. From large estate tours and special events at botanical gardens to tours of wonderful neighborhoods staged by local garden clubs, there's much to be seen while wandering through the grounds and yards and viewing the work of other designers and architects. I've always enjoyed these tours and learn something from each and every one, whether it's about a new plant or plant combination or an installation technique shared by a generous designer or installer who's on hand for that purpose. On a completely business note, I also have to say that some of my best-ever
With spring upon us, calendars of local events are filling up with garden tours of all shapes and sizes. From large estate tours and special events at botanical gardens to tours of wonderful neighborhoods staged by local garden clubs, there's much to be seen while wandering through the grounds and yards and viewing the work of other designers and architects. I've always enjoyed these tours and learn something from each and every one, whether it's about a new plant or plant combination or an installation technique shared by a generous designer or installer who's on hand for that purpose. On a completely business note, I also have to say that some of my best-ever
Why isn't the appropriate use of water a defining, central component in the education of landscape architects? That question has rattled around in my head for a long, long time, basically because it has no adequate or satisfactory answer. I'm a trained landscape architect and, as luck would have it, for nearly 20 years I've had one foot in the pool industry and the other in landscape architecture - and I've always felt like a rare beast moving back and forth between two entirely separate worlds. As I see it, this lack of affinity between these water-related industries has been a limiting factor in the advancement of the watershaping trades. For me, the lack of connection has always seemed nonsensical when it hasn't seemed tragic. As a watershaper, a big part of my work in recent years has been seeking ways to combine the best of both worlds and share what I know with university-level students in landscape architecture departments - students whose chairs I occupied some years ago and who still stand a good chance of graduating without ever having been taught anything at all about how water can
Why isn't the appropriate use of water a defining, central component in the education of landscape architects? That question has rattled around in my head for a long, long time, basically because it has no adequate or satisfactory answer. I'm a trained landscape architect and, as luck would have it, for nearly 20 years I've had one foot in the pool industry and the other in landscape architecture - and I've always felt like a rare beast moving back and forth between two entirely separate worlds. As I see it, this lack of affinity between these water-related industries has been a limiting factor in the advancement of the watershaping trades. For me, the lack of connection has always seemed nonsensical when it hasn't seemed tragic. As a watershaper, a big part of my work in recent years has been seeking ways to combine the best of both worlds and share what I know with university-level students in landscape architecture departments - students whose chairs I occupied some years ago and who still stand a good chance of graduating without ever having been taught anything at all about how water can
Through all my years of working on WaterShapes, one of the most persistent frustrations I've encountered has had to do with the ongoing lack of access would-be watershapers have to college-level education on the subject. And it's a frustration shared by landscape architects, many of whom have told me how rankled they are by
