WaterShapes Classic
'Through the years,' wrote Brian Van Bower at the head of his Aqua Culture column in the October 2005 issue of WaterShapes, 'more than a few watershaping professionals have asked me how to break through and start working with high-end clients. 'I respond by giving them the disappointing news that there is no magic key here: Serving the high end takes
'As fall looms before us,' noted Stephanie Rose in kicking off her Natural Companions column in the September 2000 issue of WaterShapes, 'it's timely to consider a question that should be a factor in every design we prepare: To drop or not to drop?' 'This question is a good one to ask before you start planning and has to do with how much natural debris your clients will be willing to fish out of their watershapes once you're gone. In other words, while it's always important to decide
'Few things are as important to the aesthetic impression made by swimming pools, spas and other watershapes as the colors you select to use in and around them,' wrote David Tisherman in opening his Details column in the September 2005 issue of WaterShapes. 'Take tile as an example. Whether it's just a waterline detail, a complete interior finish or some elaborate mosaic pattern, it serves to draw the eye into a design. If the color and material selections work, the scene can become
'The way I see it,' wrote Brian Van Bower to start his Aqua Culture column in August 2000, 'we watershapers can look at ourselves in one of two ways: as diggers of holes in the ground that hold water, or as artists working with one of the most exciting mediums on the planet. For a lot of reasons, I like the second of those options, because the first is passive - the sole goal being to contain the water - while the second gets me more
'Everywhere you turn these days,' wrote David Tisherman to start his Details column in August 2005, 'you see watershapers tackling projects that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.' 'With this broadening list of possibilities, however, . . . [t]he industry's like a teenager with a fresh driver's license: just because he or she knows how doesn't necessarily mean that
'If you ask my employees,' wrote Bruce Zaretsky in starting his July 2010 On the Level column, 'they'll tell you that I'm an unrelenting pain in the neck - a real tyrant. That's because I'm always asking nagging sorts of questions such as, "Why isn't this project finished yet?" or "How much longer is this going to take?" or "Can you speed things up?" 'My questions, of course, are somewhat unfair. . . . But I have no reluctance to come across as a tyrant
'Every single project I design and build,' wrote David Tisherman near the top of his Details column in July 2005, 'is fully, individually engineered, and I refuse to make any assumptions on my own about what might be needed in a set of plans to create a sound structure. If any builder anywhere thinks that he or she knows enough to get by without support from a structural engineer, well, that's just asking for trouble.' 'I know what I don't know, frankly, and I sleep well at night knowing that
'I've expended lots of ink,' wrote Bruce Zaretsky in opening his On the Level column in WaterShapes' June 2010 edition, 'extolling the virtues of good water management. . . . And this all makes sense, given both the needs of our society and the fact that we who read and write for WaterShapes all derive some portion of our livings from the work we
'For years,' wrote David Tisherman in his Details column in the June 2005 issue of the magazine, 'people have asked me where I get my ideas - pools raised out of the ground, the small spillways, the drain details, the modular deck treatments, the color usage and the use of reflection, to name just a few. "Through my design education" is the short answer, of course, but I can get more specific if we take a look at
'Most of us are in business to earn a living,' wrote Stephanie Rose to open her Natural Companions column in the May 2005 edition of WaterShapes, 'which is probably why so many of us think of the high-end market as the place to be. . . . But when I look more closely at the work I've done through my career, I believe we might be overlooking valuable opportunities for personal and professional growth by being so single-minded in
