#trends

So What’s Up?
The Number One question I have been asked since the announcement of the acquisition of WaterShapes by Watershape University is fairly blunt: "What does this mean for WaterShapes?" My usual answer is, "Not much - and everything!" The "not much" part pertains to the fact that
Prolonging the Thought
Before I write my end-of-year blogs, it's generally been my habit to take a look at my last year-ending thoughts to get a sense of how on (or off) target I was and figure out what I need to do to refine my prognostications for the current version. For the most part, I usually don't find anything dramatic, but this year was 
Changing Times
Before I headed to New Orleans early in November, I contacted Bill Drakeley and Dave Peterson to see if they were available for dinner on Sunday night before the show opened. They were, and we met in a little bistro near the hotel where they were staying. I wanted more information about their new Watershape University, its relationships with other organizations and its ambitions moving forward. I had no inkling that, within days after the show concluded, they'd suggest
2019/11.1, November 6 — Embracing a View, Multi-Layered Design, Diving Options and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS November 6, 2019 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…
Seats at the Table
In uploading this set of newsletter articles to the WaterShapes database, I was struck by the fact that two of them involve large measures of cross-disciplinary collaboration - in one case between a designer and two skilled contractors, in the other between a pool designer, a home designer and a skilled contractor. As I've spent time these past few weeks thinking about what's happened in the
2019/10.2, October 23 — Organizing Beauty, Assembling Components, Roberto’s World and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS October 23, 2019 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…
Product Evolution
As I'm certain was the case when many of us heard the news, I was caught off guard by the announcement in August of the formation of Watershape University. The fact that it was happening beyond the bounds of the Genesis organization and followed so soon after the emergence of the also-independent
2019/9.2, September 18 — Fountain Maneuvers, Double-Duty Waterfeatures, Trip Planning and more
THE ESSENTIAL E-NEWSLETTER FOR WATERSHAPE DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS September 18, 2019 www.watershapes.com FEATURE ARTICLE…
Soul Searching
For more than 20 years now, both as a printed magazine and as the WaterShapes web site, we've focused more or less exclusively on custom, high-end, full-featured projects, the thought always being that by offering a steady diet of
Beyond Irritating
I had started writing a completely different blog a few days back when a headline burst in to rattle my sense of calm: "6 Reasons to Demolish Your Swimming Pool Before Summer." Written by Wendy Helfenbaum and published