project management
RB Retail and Service Solutions (Monroeville, PA) now offers a fully integrated construction software solution that is designed specifically for pool and outdoor living builders. This unique module tracks construction costs, inventory, and the actual progress of each job – with customizable notes, enabling builders to track the ongoing costs of construction work, and the physical progress of the project with job progress management. Learn more here.
It's a fact: Creating large watershapes for international clients is enough to send a project team's stress levels off the charts. You start with all the usual pressures of time, money and prestige that go along with performing on the global level. Then there are cultural differences, not to mention local environmental concerns having to do with water usage. And these factors can give you trouble even when you think you know what you're getting yourself into. Through the years, our company has learned many lessons about the importance of accommodating the cultural and economic overtones of what we do. From our base in Toronto, Crystal Fountains pursues projects the world over and always strives to
This was a project that might easily have run off the rails. First, the glass tile selected by the interior designer wasn't appropriate for pool applications. It might have been lovely as a backsplash in an interior kitchen or bathroom, but it came with no solid information about its source or pedigree that would have made it a wise choice for use in a critical outdoor application. Second, the tile was rectangular and, at one-and-a-quarter by five inches, was too big for its intended use as an all-tile finish for a complex pool and spa - particularly given
In recent years, I've become increasingly focused on landing projects on St. Thomas, St. John and a bunch of other paradisal surface eruptions off the east coast of North America: I like the people, enjoy the climate and truly love the laid-back island culture I find even among the high-end clients who call on me to design their poolscapes. Quite often, the settings are the far side of spectacular, too, with views of multi-hued coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean stretching out for miles, often interrupted by
From the start, this project was all about the view: The property sits above Lake Moumelle about 30 minutes outside Little Rock, Ark., in a small town called Roland. The lake serves as the primary reservoir for the state capital, so the waters are as serene and pristine as can be - no fishing, no boats, just thousands of acres of uninterrupted serenity. We at J. Brownlee Design (Nashville, Tenn.) had been asked to design the exteriors for a new home that was then under construction on the site. The homeowners, a couple with two children, and wanted a space that would be
'When you work with someone in a cooperative effort to achieve a common goal,' wrote Curt Straub in a trailblazing article in October 1999, 'the odds are greatly reduced that you will wind up one day facing that person in a courtroom. 'The neat thing about this form of cooperation, also known in business circles as partnering, is that it can do much more than keep you off your lawyer's time clock. In fact, partnering is something that all of us in the industry can
'One of the themes I've covered repeatedly through the years,' wrote Brian Van Bower in opening his Aqua Culture column in September 2009, 'has had to do with the need for all of us to become effective team players. 'True, there have been times when egos have gotten in the way and I've found myself in fairly dysfunctional groups, but for all that, I have to say that collaboration very often
