land use
We've designed and built lots of fountains and waterfeatures through the years on all sorts of scales and levels, but this one - a definite jump outside the box - will be particularly memorable for all of us. The client was The Woodlands, the big planned community near Houston. One of its highlights is a 1.7-mile-long waterway
In recent centuries, watershapers have done a tremendous job of figuring out how water behaves in visual and aural terms and learned how to use those characteristics to make strong aesthetic impressions. Now that we’re entering an era in which environmental concerns are of increasing importance, however, we’re being challenged to think differently about water, how it affects us physically and the essential role it plays in maintaining a healthy world. That challenge is not insubstantial: As a species, we’ve done a great deal to squander water as an asset, whether by contaminating and otherwise polluting natural bodies of water or by treating pools and other watershapes with harsh chemicals. Isn’t it ironic that spas, which exist primarily so we can
Whether you’re a watershaper or a landscape architect, designer or artist, I’ve always felt that those of us who work on exterior environments should stand on the front lines of the “green movement.” After all, we move the soil, alter the terrain, plant trees and shrubs and define the use of water, among many other things. In the course of doing what we do, in other words, we alter (sometimes profoundly) the environments in which our clients live and work. It seems the media are taking notice. Every year, for example, our
