water management
Hydropavers (Pickering, Ontario, Canada) manufactures a permeable paving system that transforms deck areas into storm…
This amazing structure sits just off the route toward a more prominent tourist attraction, notes Victoria Lautman in the last of her series of articles on India's stepwells. But as is true of so many of these marvels, Peena Mann ka Kund is more than worth a detour off a well-beaten path.
A glance at our portfolio of dozens of golf-course projects dating back to 1990 shows that no two of them are exactly alike - despite the fact that our mission in each case has been exactly the same: It's our goal with every project to leave behind grassy patches that have seemingly been draped across natural terrain that has been there, untouched and untrammeled, since time immemorial. In other words, we've crafted elevation changes, watercourses, plantings and other defining features so carefully that it seems like folks who enjoy chasing little white, dimpled
For a watershaper who's spent a career designing and installing natural-looking ponds, streams and waterfalls using pumps and liners, this project was both an unusual treat and a distinct challenge - a dream job, as I saw it. I was called to the property at the suggestion of a landscape-maintenance company that wanted nothing to do with what the homeowners were asking, and the reason was pretty obvious: A spring-fed stream flowed across the property as it had done for at least hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, and it needed
I live beside a lake on a property that also includes the headquarters for my business, Floating Island International (Shepherd, Mont.). The lake serves as our laboratory, and my near-constant proximity to it means that I've gotten to watch how the water has changed through the years. It's been an upward spiral: The water keeps getting clearer, cleaner and
It always makes me happy to see innovations in watershaping. As I've mentioned before, there were times in the 1980s when I had the sense that not much was possible beyond what we already had on hand. But the past 20 years have completely driven off that impression, and I'm happy to say that just about every time I turn around something new jumps to my attention. I have two such developments in mind as I write this, one that appeals to me because of my love of opportunities to
Oddly enough, this story takes place in a down economy and shows how, despite perceived financial limitations, something surprising and wonderful can happen when people put their minds to it. For years now, my work at Aquascape (St. Charles, Ill.) has largely focused on developing, designing and installing systems that in one or more ways are environmentally sound and beneficial. In early 2009, I began working on a plan for a prototype community designed around optimal use of its resources, especially water. I imagined a town filled with rainwater-capturing systems, permeable surfaces and efficient irrigation. It included nothing but indigenous plants, was organized with minimal turf areas and set aside space for composting and cooperative organic farming. As for the homes, all of them boasted various resource- and energy-efficient features. The overall concept was so
