project management
'It's a fact of life,' declared David Tisherman in opening his Details column 15 years ago this month: 'The best design feature in the world isn't worth anything if it isn't executed properly. And no matter how good your in-house staff or subcontractors are, they need guidance when it comes to the nuts-and-bolts work of getting the job done the way its designer intends.' '[W]hen you have good, tight supervision provided by a knowledgeable overseer working with good crews and a good set of plans, anything
Several years back, the luxury car maker Lexus described its corporate mission as the relentless pursuit of perfection, and I'm willing to step up and say that working with glass tile on the shapely, detailed interior surfaces of swimming pools and spas is just that sort of pursuit. That's not saying we hit the mark with placement of every single piece of tile across surfaces that frequently cover thousands of square feet, but we have
I started out on the construction side of the pool industry nearly 20 years ago. Back then, I probably experienced the building process a good 500 times, picking up insights into what determined the level of success of each project. As time passed, I found myself being drawn to the design side: I saw it as a way to put all of those insights to good use; more important, I knew it was where I could do the most good for homeowners. In making the transition, I
We've come to the part of the installation process that's my personal favorite: finishing up the plant placement and setting the edges. This is, of course, part of every pond-installation project on one level or another, but with a frog pond, my approach is a little different. As you'll see in the video linked below (and may have noticed in previous installments), the profile of this frog pond is
When I listen to people as they stare at a fountain, I often hear them say, "How wonderful!" In witnessing that praise, however, I know for a fact that what they find appealing is the gracefulness of a sculpture or the beauty of the stone or tile finishes or the way the water flows - what I refer to as the fountain's "façade." In many cases, what's behind that façade can be pretty mundane: maybe a small pump, some simple plumbing, a cascade head or sconce and little more. In other cases, however, what's going on behind the surface is
Many times in the past 15 years, articles published by WaterShapes have referred to water as "the main ingredient" when it comes to pools, spas, fountains, ponds and all of the other forms of contained, controlled water. I'm willing to accept that assertion and have probably offered it myself a time or two. Here, however, I want to
Consider this scenario: A company you've worked with in the past calls your firm in to work on a project. You're told the setting is magnificent: You'll be working with a huge sculpture in the most prominent position in front of one of the most renowned sports stadiums on the planet - all of this in a city that prides itself on brilliant architecture. The job is yours, but here's the thing: The client is the wife of Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, and he's not supposed to know what's really going on out front of his own stadium until an unveiling ceremony scheduled for his birthday. And it gets better: The call comes at the end of April and the unveiling ceremony will take place in October. To say it's a fast-track project would be putting it mildly. Once the design was finalized, we were to have ten weeks to turn approximately a million and a half pounds of concrete, steel and stone into a working fountain. And along the way, the stadium was to host a range of events - a Monster Truck Jam, a FIFA World Cup Soccer qualifying match, a Professional
Some projects carry obvious prestige, and this is one of them: The pair of reflecting pools and the sculpture that rises above them stand in front of AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas - home to the Dallas Cowboys and, several times a year, host to nationally televised football games. But certain of these prestige projects take on extra dimensions - and this was one of them, too: The mirror-finished dish that surmounts the watershapes
