pool
Whether you build fountains, streams or Olympic-size swimming pools, you need to install a pump of some kind to make these watershapes work. As fundamental and essential as pumps really are, however, it's amazing to think how casual many of us in the trade are when it comes to knowing about how they work and how their performance characteristics differ. We've all heard and used terms like "energy efficient," "high head" and "self-priming," but for the most part, the real meanings of those words get lost in the competitive marketing blizzard that surrounds these products. Without a clear understanding of how pumps are designed and how they do their job, these distinctions are no more than words on a label - and that's not the way it should be. As watershapes become ever more complex and hydraulically challenging, cutting through the hype to find out what truly makes pumps work becomes even more important: No matter how beautiful a design may be, without a properly selected and installed pump working at the heart of the system, the best work will fall short in
No one ever said that change was easy. In our case, in fact, it's been a struggle every step of the way. But even though we're still in the middle the process, I can tell already that it's been worth it - and that the best is yet to come. Lipinski Pools, an offshoot of Lipinski Landscaping in Mt. Laurel, N.J., has worked with pools as part of the company's overall landscaping business for several years now. We started by acting as general contractors and farming out a lot of the work. Using that approach, we
Montecito is home some of the grandest estates on the West Coast, but relatively few people know about it or where it is. A sleepy little town, it lies several miles east of Santa Barbara and some 80 miles or so northwest of Los Angeles. From the beautiful hilltop estates that dot the landscape, you can see Santa Barbara's wharf and downtown in the foreground, with sweeping vistas of the Pacific Ocean dominating the horizon. The big ranches of Montecito are dotted with hundreds of watershapes inspired by the Spanish-Colonial and Moorish architecture that surround them. Most were installed as part of the Spanish Revival movement that took hold among architects and landscape designers all over California through the first half of the 20th Century. The revivalists' octagonal and quatrefoil fountains and courtyards provide a visual link to the state's Spanish heritage. Fueled by the explosion of Hollywood's movie industry during this time, the combination of money, lots of open land and a popular architectural style resulted in creation of some of the most beautiful estates anywhere in the world - none more so than a property named Cima del Mundo, Spanish for
Edge treatments are important to me. They can lead the eye into the water, set up a barrier, break down a barrier. They're simply too critical to the overall impression made by a watershape to be left to chance. For the past ten years, I've found myself using one edge treatment more and more: a poured-in-place coping that uses colored concrete. I've now done it dozens of times, and my clients have always been thrilled by the results. In effect, I use the concrete to create soft and subtly colored rectangular
This really wasn't a job for the timid. The ground was unstable, access was limited, and the customer could afford to make massive changes along the way. Other than that, of course, the project was a piece of cake. The truth is, I enjoy a good challenge. People who know me well are aware that I revel in tackling jobs that test my mettle - and this was definitely one of those cases. Ultimately, it turned out to be one of the most satisfying and beautiful projects I've been involved with in a long while. The site is located on
When you design and build custom swimming pools for a living, I'd guess you're always thinking somewhere in the back of your mind about what your own pool would be like if you ever got the chance to build it. In my case, when I finally did have the opportunity to design and build one for my home, I knew it had to be a complete extension of my own design philosophy, standards of construction and product choices. That was a no-brainer. What surprised me was just how much excitement and pleasure I derived from the process of seeing my own backyard take shape. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted going in. I've developed strong likes and dislikes through the years, and I knew with good degree of certainty that our pool would have a vanishing edge, an attached spa, interesting lighting and an array of beautiful finish materials. Even with all that in mind, however, landing on the perfect design that expressed all of those elements wasn't automatic by any means. As with any custom watershape, each facet of the project required consideration and a weighing of the options. This forced me to step back and decide what I thought was
It's a basic and important idea: Quality and beauty can and should be provided across a wide range of pricing levels. In my work, I design and build many residential and commercial watershapes with budgets well into six figures; I also tackle many projects firmly planted in the five-figure range. No matter the budget, I believe strongly that I owe it to my clients to deliver a watershape of lasting beauty each and every time. Fact is, quality and artistry often can be achieved with a distinctly uncomplicated program. By bringing a watershape's design into harmony with the architecture of the home and/or other adjoining structures, it's often possible to enhance aesthetics and value without dramatically increasing the price tag. Take the project seen here as an example: Through careful placement and shaping of the vessel, artistic edge treatments and minor elevation changes - none of which added appreciably to the cost - I left my clients with a watershape they love at a price they could
Watershapes come in lots of configurations and sizes, but when you get right down to it, they mostly share two basic materials of construction - concrete and steel - that in combination have the potential to withstand generations of use. Fashioning these structures is at the heart of what watershapers do: Every-thing else, from the plumbing or the plaster to the tile or the decking, is really secondary. Sure, the pool won't function without plumbing or look pretty without tile, but it wouldn't even exist without its skeleton of steel and its concrete flesh. For all that importance, however, most people tend to give the steel in particular little thought or care. It's invisible once the gunite is in place, so there's a tendency even among those who know better to blow it off and save a few bucks by using too little steel or by doing quick, sloppy work. And why should you care? No one will ever see what you've done, right? Actually, given the role that steel plays in the durability and viability of the concrete structure, this should be the last place to
Everything about this job was big: the budget, the number of watershapes, the upscale location and, especially, the customer's expectations. The owners, Town Realty of Milwaukee, envisioned their five watershapes as the key amenities for a new condominium development in Cocoa Beach, Fla., a signature element that would woo potential buyers who visited the 124-unit vacation complex. To reach that goal, their project team gathered aquatic experts from all over the Sunshine State to create the plans and specifications, supervise the bidding process, oversee construction and
It's an art form that connects modern craftspeople to those of the distant past. In fact, the roots of mosaic tiling can be traced to Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C., where temple walls were decorated with simple earthenware fragments. Centuries later, the ancient Greeks decorated their courtyards with large and small pebble mosaics, and sophisticated examples of mosaic work are found later in everything from Turkish mosques to Italian basilicas. The Romans, however, probably pushed mosaics about as far as any culture could in the first few centuries A.D. They adorned baths, pools, spas, floors and walls of important buildings as well as humbler residences with intricate mosaics made up of ceramic, stone, glass and marble. Recent years may have seen a revival of this ancient artistic technique, but as can be seen in the accompanying photographs, what many of today's designers are doing with classic forms is a real step forward - a departure from tradition that has made today's mosaics a thoroughly modern form of
