engineering
I'm going to start the New Year by breaking a personal tradition - and I'm going to do it on a grand scale. As I've written in past first-of-the-year blogs, I'm not inclined to make New Year's resolutions for myself, mainly because when I made them in the distant past, it would generally take less than a
Working on the road can be tough. As was discussed in the first of this pair of articles (click here), it can get even rougher when you're working on a cliff in a remote area and have been asked to build a big watershape in a place where all sorts of environmental rules and restrictions apply and there are also plenty of easy-to-upset neighbors. I thought we were ready for all contingencies as we prepared ourselves, the design, the plans, the permits and the site. I was even prepared to deal with the half-load restrictions imposed to protect thawing
Working on a large-scale project is a challenge when it happens even ten miles from your home base: Big jobs are just plain tough. But building that same project 150 miles away? That takes the difficulty to another level - and when you mix in an extremely difficult, environmentally sensitive site, it can feel as though you're operating on another planet. A case in point can be found in our participation in a design/build project on a remote cottage estate in the stunning
Aquascendo (Los Angeles, CA) makes a movable pool floor system that can be raised or…
Hammerhead International (Las Vegas, NV) makes acrylic panels for use in high-end residential and commercial…
Color Match Pool Fittings (Phoenix, AZ) manufactures the SuperFlow 360 drain cover and sump for…
Rooftop pools and other similarly elevated swimming pool structures present unique sets of considerations that must be thoroughly addressed by anyone involved in their design and construction. As was discussed in the first article in this two-part series ("Elevated Engineering," click here), it is common for these watershapes to be constructed inside a concrete vault or supported on a concrete structural slab - either of which is usually
I had a college professor who was fond of saying, "There are only two types of concrete in this world: The first is concrete that is cracked, and the second is concrete that is going to crack." That's a good laugh line, but the tough thing about it is that it's also true. This is why the engineering design procedures for all reinforced concrete (pursuant to ACI 318 and 350, which are the key American Concrete Institute standards for concrete structures) allow for
