Tina Skinner
For the past few years, I’ve made a practice of offering occasional roundups of books that feature swimming pools as their star attractions. As I’ve mentioned before, there was a time when such publications simply did not exist – but now we seem to be in an era when pools are hot and a visit to a good bookstore will reveal a plethora of relevant titles covering a remarkably wide range of projects and styles. As with swimming pools themselves, of course, the books dedicated to them vary widely in quality and creativity: Some are truly wonderful, while others are of marginal value and offer little by way of useful ideas. I take all of them, however, as evidence that booksellers have noticed increasing consumer interest in highly imaginative swimming pools. I further believe that this interest has developed because so many of today’s watershapers are willing to push forcefully at the boundaries of creativity. [ ] Let’s start with
For a long time now, clients and prospects have been asking me about exterior facilities that will enable them to cook, dine and entertain in their backyards. It's been so prevalent, in fact, that I've mentioned the trend in this space on a couple of occasions - noting once or twice my frustration about the lack of books available for me to use in meeting the need. The sheer demand for these features seems to have arrived several steps ahead of publishers' being able to put books on the shelves. In the past year, however, that picture has changed. Just recently, in fact, I picked up four
For a long time now, clients and prospects have been asking me about exterior facilities that will enable them to cook, dine and entertain in their backyards. It's been so prevalent, in fact, that I've mentioned the trend in this space on a couple of occasions - noting once or twice my frustration about the lack of books available for me to use in meeting the need. The sheer demand for these features seems to have arrived several steps ahead of publishers' being able to put books on the shelves. In the past year, however, that picture has changed. Just recently, in fact, I picked up four
Swimming pools and other watershapes make great subjects for photographers, which makes it logical that every year or two I've be able to amass a new collection of these books to review. In general, publications such as these are all about pretty projects and are aimed mainly at consumers, but I've always found them useful as sources for design ideas and, in general, as a means of seeing what other people are doing. For the most part, however, these publications are not particularly "informative": Once you get past the pictures, there's really not much else there to build knowledge or advance the craft. Such is the case with all four of the publications I'll cover here in quick, round-up fashion. All are beautifully illustrated, and some display an interesting range when it comes to
Most coffee-table books on swimming pools published to date have dealt almost exclusively with the work of architects and landscape architects. The past year, however, has seen the publication of three new books about pools - each of them focusing primarily on the work of pool contractors. The result is three books that cover a broad range of styles and designs - a trio I've already found to be extremely useful as
