Lagoon Pools & Design

Oftentimes, we end up wanting to make everything on the landscape look as much a part of Nature as can as we can. This can be challenging when we built certain structures such as swimming pools, which are by nature very human and artificial environments. However, while we may not be able to alter the basic purpose of a thing, we can change the way it comes across by altering its proportions and appearance. This being considered, lagoon pool designs are some of the most powerful examples of how something inherently manmade in origin can be sculpted to blend with the topography and structures of the earth itself.

From a design-build perspective, lagoon pools are not built any differently than standard and luxury pools. What makes them different is their deliberate departure from the strict linearity that defines most other pool styles. With these other designs, water is strictly contained in a rectangular space or adjacent series of rectangles and squares. The opposite is true for lagoon pools.

This is done to imitate Nature’s apparent boredom with straight lines. Think about it for a moment. Everything you see in nature either goes in a curve or breaks a straight line soon enough with a jagged edge or angular departure from linearity. We want to imitate this progression in lagoon pool design—using free flowing energy to follow a progression that will end up looking like something we would suddenly stumble on in some remote island paradise.

Curved lines and rough edges are the key to making this work. We want our lagoon pool design to flow across the ground like water coming into an inlet from the sea. This means we have to forget about this whole mathematical concept of a radius. Radii are used in other constructions to establish symmetry and clear boundaries. We don’t want any boundaries here, but something instead that speaks of freedom, destination, and a sense of rest after a long and harrowing journey.

Most lagoon pool designs have a tropical look to them due to the strong connection between lagoons and islands in the South Pacific. There is a derivative form, however, based upon bodies of water in Central Texas. We call this our Hill Country theme and has been developed especially for Houstonians whose jobs are in Houston but whose hearts are in Austin. For such individuals, we landscape their property with a Hill Country ranch theme, and we shape the pool to look like the ponds and tanks you would find in the open spaces of rolling Texas hills.