reflections
Compiled and Written by Lenny Giteck London Aquatics Centre Named Year’s ‘Most-Hard-to-Miss Design’
In one of my very first Travelogues (see the October 26, 2011 edition of WaterShapes EXTRA!), I wrote about Washington’s Bainbridge Island – and more specifically about Bloedel Reserve and its large reflecting pool, which was showcased by Kelly Klein in Pools, her wonderful coffee-table book. I’ve just returned from another trip to the island and once again
In all my many years of working with water, I’ve never grown tired of its remarkable beauty and complexity – or of the variations it encompasses, the ways it changes and the endless fascination it offers to those who come into its presence. At the heart of water’s ability to inspire us and rivet our attention is its capacity to reflect. There’s something truly magical about the way water mirrors the sky, a surrounding landscape, nearby architecture or a well-placed work of art. It’s a gift of sorts, a timeless bounty that has captured imaginations ever since Narcissus fell in
Fire effects have grown tremendously in popularity in recent years, especially among swimming pool designers and builders who use them in developing various fire-on-water features. On one level, it seems that these professionals (and their clients) have noticed that systems that contain and control fire serve as wonderful complements to systems that contain and control water. On a grander scale, however, it’s apparent that, as watershape designers and builders have become more and more creative, fire features have risen in the estimation of those who want to give their clients something special – something few others have. At my company, Grand Effects of Irvine, Calif., we’ve focused on making it easy for watershapers, general contractors and landscape designers and architects to bring fire into the picture across a range of applications. To that end, we’ve developed an array of completely off-the-shelf systems, ready to install, and have done all of the engineering and testing required to build confidence into every product. In doing so, we’ve studied possible effects and developed
There’s something truly wonderful about working on properties that are in one way or another historic: In a very real sense, they give you a rare opportunity to participate in the past while at the same time you are conceiving and forming a place for the future. This project is a case in point: My endeavors here gave me the chance to beautify a truly splendid 1905 private home in southern Wisconsin and complement its amazing Palladian/Greek Revival-style bone structure with a contemporary composition in rock, plant material and water. The owner, who has a passion for architecture and historic preservation, had already completed a total restoration of the buildings. The grounds, however, still left much to be desired. The property manager had worked with me on a previous project, and he suggested that I should be brought in to revitalize the space – the centerpiece of which would turn out to be
If there’s ever been such a thing as a match made in heaven, swimming pools and landscape lighting lay a strong claim to that perfection. Separately, they take little-used spaces and transform them to all-day hubs of activity and sources of constant beauty. Together, however, the magic starts, with pools and landscape lighting systems accentuating each other’s virtues in ways that are tough to quantify or adequately describe. To landscape lighting designers and installers, pools offer a
Although I’ve done it on a couple occasions through the past 11 years, I’ve always had trouble writing columns that welcome a New Year – even when times have been good and there have been reasons aplenty for lavish doses of optimism. I just don’t like clichés, and they’re amazingly difficult to avoid when you look to the future with
In December 2004, WaterShapes introduced ‘The Platinum Standard,’ a registry of projects that embodies watershaping…
As I see it, successful landscape lighting is a two-part process: First, the designer applies aesthetic principles that create the art, then he or she supports that artistic vision with scientific and technological savvy. One without the other doesn’t work: You can’t effectively practice the art until you’ve mastered the science. In my 17 years as a lighting designer, I’ve encountered lots of professionals who have the artistic part of the equation down pat but fall well short when it comes to working with electricity. The plain fact is, you can use the best fixtures in the world and understand the aesthetic issues like the back of your hand, but if you can’t consistently deliver power to those fixtures at correct, reliable voltages, the overall system will not perform properly and has the potential to become a maintenance nightmare. There’s no way a single article can bring anyone up to speed with all of the issues involved in the science lighting. Instead, my intention here is to introduce watershapers to a basic, commonsense approach to laying out low-voltage, halogen lighting systems, the goal being to enable you to converse intelligently and persuasively with lighting designers in the interest of helping
