environments Archives - Water Shapes

Vortex Arranges Water Journey for Kids

Vortex Aquatic Structures (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) offers Water Journey, a collection of four moveable, touchable,…

2015/3.1, March 4 — Hot Water Comforts, Digital Dynamics, Efficient Lighting and more

THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS March 4, 2015 www.watershapes.com DIGITAL DESIGN…

While focusing on naturalistic watershapes and finely crafted garden spaces, northern California’s Rick Driemeyer has developed an unusual specialty in creating environments that are safe and nurturing for a variety of animal species. This wrinkle, he says, allows him to explore his passion for nature, but it also informs his plant choices, determines the configurations of his watershapes and necessitates unusually close interaction with clients.

Safe Havens

It’s one of the unavoidable results of living in urban or suburban areas: People who dwell in mostly built environments feel cut off from nature. This, of course, is one of the reasons why ponds and streams have become so popular among so many homeowners. Adding spice to the sauce, I’ve found in recent years that this desire for naturalistic watershapes and elaborate gardens has also been attended by a desire on the parts of many of my clients to attract various forms of wildlife to participate in the setting. And it’s not just about fish in their ponds: With increasing frequency, my clients are also asking me to design and build spaces that will comfortably host a variety of creatures, including

Big Ideas

When you spend any time talking to designers of public artworks, the concept of "social responsibility" inevitably comes up in the conversation in one way or another. That makes sense, because artists who work in the public arena often

The thing that makes a painting great isn’t the pigment mixed on the palette or the brush used to apply it. Those are merely tools, observes landscaper Jim Lampl, who finds art and beauty in the way the strokes are laid on the canvas. The same holds true for watershapes, he says: The art and beauty aren’t in the stones or plantings, but in the way all of the components and materials are composed on site.

Natural Intuitions

I believe that what we strive for in our watershapes is evident in the paintings and sculpture of the great masters. The harmony, the beauty, the drama, the excitement of the senses, the total captivation of the viewer create an experience we call great art. The more we can reflect on this work and use it as a lofty benchmark, the more effective our watershapes become. I've always believed that the best way to work at the highest level is to follow the tenets of

Wanted: Water Artists

The way I see it, we watershapers can look at ourselves in one of two ways: as diggers of holes in the ground that hold water, or as artists working with one of the most exciting mediums on the planet. For a lot of reasons, I like the second of those options, because the first is passive - the sole goal being to contain the water - while the second gets me more deeply involved with a truly amazing and malleable material. Once we look at water the way a painter sees pigment or a sculptor views stone, we see a potential for dramatic contrasts: Water has a soothing effect, for example, yet it can be tremendously