feature article
The feature clients like most about custom pool slides – particularly those of the modular variety – is their tremendous flexibility: The average slide is about 15 feet long, but the sky truly is the limit, with elaborate installations stretching out across 30 or 40 feet in length. Slopes are generously variable as well, but there are obvious space considerations that come into play with larger-scale projects. A good rule of thumb for a desirable 20-degree slope: Every foot built up vertically generally requires about three feet of horizontal build-out. Obviously, this means that space availability is a major factor in slide design and construction. The great thing is, the basic procedures of slide installation do not vary much with size, so the process, once learned, is pretty straightforward and repeatable. Here, we’ll be focusing on what this means with
Far too often, consumers approach construction projects in and around their homes as though they were buying television sets at a local mall. Nothing could be farther from reality! Let’s take a swimming pool as a case in point: Unlike an off-the-shelf commodity, a pool is a personal item that should be designed around the buyers, their lifestyle, how they entertain and – very important! – the nature of the building site. Also unlike most consumer commodities, the excellence of quality, design and performance is known to
Today’s consumers are more environmentally savvy than ever before, so it’s good that there are plenty of like-minded landscape designers and watershapers out there – “green-oriented” professionals who are more than interested in working with homeowners to create outdoor environments that are
The arrival of Dasher and Blitzen is just around the corner, and it’s a certainty that once they’ve landed on your rooftop (with such a clatter, I’m sure), they’ll cast hungry eyes on the plants arranged in the gardens below. Remember: Santa will be
When couples get together to plan their backyards, sparks frequently fly. Once they really dig into the process and start defining their individual desires, they find all too often that their wish lists are actually worlds apart. As an outdoor designer, I’ve worked with couples who’ve run into these sorts of vision-related snags at some point in the process, and it all boils down to
When I want to work real magic into my designs, I play with fire – and do my best to find extraordinary ways to combine fire with water to express the full, captivating power of both of these natural elements. Picture flames dancing across the reflective stillness of a pool; or visualize them alongside an inviting walkway that leads you
I was recently involved as an expert witness in a case where, among many other flawed parts of the project, I came across a distinctly substandard pool deck. The grout was cracking all over the place, and most of the flagstone veneer was either loose or in the process of breaking free of the substrate. The diagnosis didn’t take long: All I did was dig back a part of the lawn at the edge of the patio, and the not-so-surprising truth revealed itself.
Lots of homeowners believe that they can save money by “cutting out the middle man” and supplying materials such as tile and stone directly to a design or construction firm. The theory is that they will avoid markups and will be paying only for installation. That may literally be the case, but it’s
We describe them using many terms – as vanishing-edge, infinity-edge, negative-edge, knife-edge, slot-overflow, flooded-deck, gutter or perimeter-overflow pools, among others – but no matter what we call them, all of these watershapes operate on the same basic premise: By moving a sufficient quantity of water from a collection basin or tank to a visible main vessel at a sufficient rate, we can create systems in which
When you approach a design challenge, it always helps to be aware of the work of those who’ve gone before. That’s why college programs for designers, including architects and landscape architects, so often incorporate courses intended to teach students about the history of art and architecture. It’s a foundation that
