patio design
This project started with an unexpected phone call. The clients, who live in Iowa much of the year but have a second home on the water's edge in Tampa Bay, had spotted a Wall Street Journal article in which a photograph of a swimming pool with a "floating" fire pit had been included. They loved the look and figured they could use it to dress up the poolscape that had come with their Florida retreat - if only they could find a local company to do it! Looking through the text, she spotted a reference to the fact that we at Ryan Hughes|Design|Build had designed and competed the project that
EasyPro Pond Products (Grant, MI) offers Vianti Falls Kits – everything needed to turn a…
MistAmerica (Scottsdale, AZ) has released MiniCool, an outdoor cooling system for residential applications. Designed to…
This project began with a client's dropped jaw. I'd been called to the site by one of my usual subcontractors to help resolve a minor problem he was having. While that was being resolved, I noticed that the new steps in the remodeled pool were far more troubling. With the client and a bunch of other people standing there, I asked for a demo hammer - and saw the looks of astonishment as I smacked the top step and
Artistic Paver Mfg. (North Miami Beach, FL) has unveiled PlankLock, a paver system designed to…
There are all sorts of amenities associated with outdoor living that, taken together, conspire to create what I see as undesirable visual clutter. This is why, when I approach any backyard project, I take my time in sizing up my clients and doing all I can to figure out how they’ll be using the space. If it’s to be an active, family-oriented play/recreational space, for example, I’ll start thinking about
At the same time I’m interviewing my clients about their patios and determining exactly what they want and how they plan to use them (see my article in the October 9 edition of WaterShapes EXTRA!), I’m already thinking about traffic flow. As I see it, this constitutes one of the keys to
