Swimming Pool Landscape Design

For a Houston landscape, a swimming pool landscape design is often the pièce de résistance. Our climate invites the presence of a pool and people are naturally drawn to it. The creativity applied to the attendant landscaping only heightens the impact. Not merely the glue that holds everything together, a pool and its landscaping are the jewels atop the crown.

Exterior Worlds offers luxury designs that take the basic elements of swimming pools and give them sophisticated élan, creating a special atmosphere for all your festive occasions. Our swimming pool landscape designs allow you to move seamlessly from the interior to the exterior with the pool area functioning as a continuation of your living space. Because it serves as this linkage, it is imperative that the swimming pool design properly complement the architecture of your house. Our professional landscape designers will help you achieve all the prerequisite demands.

There’s even good news for homeowners of older residences with pools designed and built in, say, the 70s and 80s. If you’ve been looking with desire at the latest shelter magazines with their exquisite spreads of swimming pool landscape designs, a swimming pool restoration or swimming pool remodeling project from Exterior Worlds could be your solution.

A restoration project is the least involved of the two projects. Perhaps the pool’s shell could use re-surfacing to achieve a particular aesthetic that is available with today’s product offerings. Or it could mean updating the pool decking with more current material choices.

With a remodeling job, however, a complete re-do is required. It is a project that involves reconsidering your pool area and tailoring it to your specific site, including terrain, tree elements, drainage and all structural architecture, and complying with your specific needs and desires. Since no two remodeling jobs are ever alike, an Exterior World’s professional design team is best suited for this extensive venture. Bottom line, though, both re-do options are viable alternatives to consider.

Items to consider in your swimming pool landscape design:

• In conjunction with your swimming pool designer, you will first need to ascertain the best location of the pool, a choice driven by the space available and the spatial relationship of the house and yard. You want it to be eye-catching and inviting. At the same time, you want it to fit the space without overpowering it.
• Another major element is the patio, the wonderful and much-used outdoor space is often the “living room” of your backyard. Common construction types include flagstone patio, wood patios and patio pavers.
• One feature of the pool to pay close attention to is the pool coping. Coping is the masonry product that sits on the edge of the pool’s shell, often rising above the patio and is the hard surface on which you sit when you dangle your feet in the water. Coping material choices are driven by two functions: compatibility (it should be coordinated with other material choices made for your home and landscape) and safety (it needs to be a non-slippery surface like brick or stone).

For more than 20 years, Houston has turned to Exterior Worlds for high-end landscape design and services, including custom swimming pools. 713-827-2255.

Outdoor Water Features

At Exterior Worlds, we pour all our years of experience, skill and passion into each landscape design, especially outdoor water features. Their forms and uses are many, like water itself. Here are a few examples of ones we’ve designed and installed:

• Custom fountain designs. Custom fountains are dynamic and functional outdoor water features, especially when made using highly personalized and luxurious signature designs. By providing sound and movement, these works of art extend the pleasure of your landscape design by engaging the senses.
• Garden wall fountains. With a touch of elegance, wall fountains enhance your garden by turning it into a delightful and tranquil space. If you have a theme garden, such as a Tuscan garden or modern courtyard design, they can expand that idea.
• Disappearing water fountains. The disappearing water fountain is characterized by the absence of a basin. The water seems to dissolve into the ground, when in reality it goes into a camouflaged pit and then re-circulates. This unique landscape element is a favorite of secluded areas, such as a yoga retreat or reading area.
• Reflecting pools. Reflecting pools, known for their tranquil surfaces, are most often located near taller edifices to serve as a mirror and magnifier. Through the use organic and non-organic components, they link elements together in a mesmerizing focal point.

• Koi ponds. Eye-catching, ornamental, enchanting—these are just a few of the adjectives used to describe koi ponds. Even while providing a home for its fish, these ponds give you tremendous variability, design-wise. For example, naturalistic ponds recall the wilderness. If constructed in a rectangle or circle, they contrast with amorphous shapes found elsewhere. They are as adaptable as nature itself.
• Garden waterfall designs. Using elements found in nature, such as rocks, streams, boulders and elevation, waterfall designs recreate one of the natural world’s more memorable features. Even though they are relatively expensive to install, homeowners love waterfalls for their dramatic and impressive appeal.
• Custom swimming pools. Using both new and classic concepts, a custom pool is one of the key elements in your master landscaping plan. Your relatively large financial outlay is repaid with a high level of functionality and aesthetic appeal as it works perfectly with your lifestyle, extant architecture and topography.

In considering any outdoor water feature within your landscape design, we are very cognizant of how your chosen water element blends with other elements on your property, specifically the architectural style of your home. We work for seamless integration because we want the beauty to shine through—with no jarring distractions. Our planning and designing are further defined by sophisticated style and sumptuous materials. This singular style works whether our clients’ preferences are for the simple or grand scale.

In the end, luxury in your Houston landscape design is communicated in many ways. The sense of luxury is conveyed with hardscapes, softscapes, material choices and attention to detail. Over the years, we have come to believe that an outdoor water feature is one of the most impressive landscaping elements. Water is magic. It soothes, energizes, delights. It can be playful or peaceful, inspired or inspiring. So, go ahead—indulge your aesthetic sense with the art of water.

Landscape Pool Design

The first thing to consider in landscape pool design is the size and shape of the pool. It must be constructed in the complex of a larger and more comprehensive landscape master plan. Home architecture must be respected above all things. Next, softscape elements and outdoor buildings must appear appropriately complimented by the pool’s appearance.

What is my first consideration in landscape pool design?
You want to decide on the size and shape of the pool. It is always better to talk to a professional landscape designer about this than the pool contractor. This is because the pool itself is going to fit into the context of a larger landscape master plan. The geometry of the pool must respect the architecture of the home and proportionally compliment the hardscapes and softscape elements of your yard.

How large should my pool be?
Think about your lifestyle and your plans for future events. If you have children, or if you plan to host parties around the pool, you will need a larger swimming pool than you will if you only plan to use it as a couple or entertain a handful of close friends.

Where should I have the pool built?
Landscape pool design is all about relationships to other points of interest. You not only want the pool to look good when you look at it from the home, the arbor, the outdoor kitchen, or the morning garden, but you also want these same features to appear unique and clearly visible when you look out into your yard from the vantage point of your swimming pool patio.

Should special safety features be included in my landscape pool design?
If you have children, yes. If you plan to invite elderly guests or people with disabilities to your home, handrails and special steps that lead down into a shallow part of the pool need to be built into its design.

What recreational features can be incorporated into landscape pool design?
One of the most popular features that we often build into our pools is a spa. Spas are normally heated and lit so people can feel a blend of comfort and luxury when reclining within them. Spas can also be designed with special jets that will help those with arthritis or other physical challenges get safe and healthy water exercise.

If you have such a physical challenge, get your doctor to describe in detail what you need in terms of water exercise and share it with our design staff. We have all sorts of custom designs we can adapt to your needs.

Do you recommend special water features?
That is a matter of personal preference, but the decision to incorporate special water features needs to be made at the onset of landscape pool design. Waterfalls add excitement and vertical impact to pools, and when lit with underwater lights, a sense of magic. Water jets can also add drama and impact to both daytime and nighttime pool activities, as well as giving children something to play in.

What type of patio should I have built around my swimming pool?
You can have anything from decorative concrete to something as elaborate as cut stone that is hand-laid and made to imitate something in the natural world. The shape of your patio should aesthetically compliment both the pool and the surrounding landscape. The size of your patio should reflect your anticipated number of guests for planned outdoor events.

Three-Level Pool Patio

When they work only with softscape elements like lawns, gardens, trees, and shrubs, it is sometimes very challenging for Houston landscaping design specialists to create special zones of comfort and interest. Vegetation is good for magnifying space, but to build a sense of structure into the landscape, architectural structures and custom hardscapes have to be introduced into the master plan that will scale down the Houston landscape into deliberately proportioned spaces that create a sense of amenity for people.

One phase of a multi-phase Houston landscaping project recently done for the Friedman family illustrates this truism. The home and yard were of such monumental proportions that outdoor elements had to be designed in proportionally large dimensions. Along with a custom swimming pool, we had to build a 2,000 sq. foot patio pool deck that could host events number up to-50 people. The challenge was to design the patio with an aura of uniqueness and significance to avoid generating too much of a stage effect.

Houston landscaping designers eventually determined that three elevation changes could be built into the hardscape that would effectively create three distinct areas of interest and assembly. One area would surround the pool itself. A second area, higher area connecting to the summer kitchen of the home would overlook the pool fountain and the spa. A third area at the opposite end of the pool would lead up to an arbor that offered a superb vantage of the surrounding Houston landscape.

We constructed the patio out of Pennsylvania blue stone. Using a dark colored stone like this is one way to scale a large property down in perspective. It creates a focal point that draws the eye away from the vastness of the Houston landscape and draws it into a new realm of refined poolside comfort and special water effects.

Houston landscaping experts designed the patio with custom drains and special water jets that helped create these water effects. At night, water shot out from these jets into the lighted depths of the pool.. Stairs leading up to the terrace were built broad and wide so people would feel like they were gradually descending to the water or ascending into a higher realm.

We also used Pennsylvania sandstone to continue the aesthetic theme of the patio. This terrace offers first time visitor and returning guests alike a superb choice between the spa and the arbor above. Rocking chairs provide comfortable seating from an ideal vantage point just in front of the arbor. A retaining behind the terrace built to hold back the grade of the soil also serves a decorative function by framing the entire upper patio with border and emphasis.

Houston Swimming Pool Contractors

Are you dreaming of new landscape plans, one that includes a swimming pool in your back yard? If so, Exterior Worlds is one of the best regarded Houston swimming pool contractors and we’d be happy to help with your project.

The process starts with the design. As longtime Houston swimming pool contractors, we are experts in the design aspect. Your choices range from lagoon pool designs to waterfall landscape designs to site-specific designs—and just about everything in-between.

Our swimming pool discussions always include safety. Areas for your consideration:

• Non-slippery surfaces in the immediate wet area.
• Depending on your lifestyle, a pool fence to safeguard who has access to the water, such as an ornamental iron fence.
• Night lighting. The lighting for your pool should be viewed as part of your overall residential landscape lighting plan with the intention of making it seamless with the whole.

If you are landscaping for entertainment, you might want to think about putting in additional water elements that elevate the design impact. Examples of these head-turners include pool water fountains and fire and water fountains.

For those of you considering landscaping remodeling, Exterior Worlds is a particularly smart choice as your Houston swimming pool contractor due to our willingness to go the extra mile in getting the job done right. While a swimming pool remodeling project certainly can be done and often is something that needs to be done, it is a complex job that requires the most from your swimming pool professionals. In other words—no time for a cookie-cutter frame of mind.

Once the design is nailed down, then as your Houston swimming pool contractor we will do the following:

• We schedule a pre-construction meeting to let you know what to expect, when and by whom.
• Simultaneously, we will begin the permitting process.
• Once the necessary approvals are in place, then comes the grading and excavating of the site.
• Rebar is then installed in the shell, as well as the plumbing and electrical work is completed.
• The pool will be sprayed with a concrete-like substance called gunite.
• After the gunite cures, comes the installation of the coping, specialty features such as outdoor fireplaces or retaining walls, and the pool deck.
• As the last step, the gunite is plastered, often using upgraded materials such as quartz finishes in a wide range of textures and colors.
• Then add water and the fun begins.

As you can tell, it is no small task to undertake the building or restoring of a swimming pool. Therefore, it may be in your best interest to hire us as general contractor, also known as a project designer. In this capacity, we bring two important assets to the table. The first advantage is that we can look at your entire landscape design to ensure that the pool integrates with the total picture and that all your landscaping zones flow together.
The second benefit is financial—we will schedule the different subcontractors, thus keeping the work progressing in a logical and timely manner, which, in the end, saves you money and aggravation.

Since 1987, Exterior Worlds has provided upscale landscape services, including project management for swimming pools construction and remodeling to the Houston area. Call 713-827-2255 for a consultation.

Swimming Pool Renovation Project

The Berry family of Houston, Texas recently hired us for a pool renovation project. The pool surface, plaster, tile, and coping required reworking. Originally, the Berry’s had contacted us to see of we could simply restore the pool. We told him that we certainly could, but after pointing out to him how the pool was actually working against his overall landscape design, we were able show him how swimming pool renovation would actually give them a better outcome than they had hoped for.

The original pool had some design challenges that prevented it from working harmoniously with the remainder of the landscape aesthetic. Part of the pool was framed by an architectural wall and by a partly brick and bluestone patio. The problem with this design was that the wall was too tall. It created a sense of separation from the remainder fo the yard, and it obscured the view of a beautiful arbor located just behind the pool. It also hosted a contemporary, sheer descent waterfall fountain that looked oddly modern and out of place in relationship to the traditional lawn garden design of the yard. Restoring this wall to its proper relationship with the landscape was the most important component of our swimming pool rennovation project.

We knew that the fountain had to go because the contemporary design did not work with the freeform swimming pool design or the residential architecture of the home. We felt that the wall would work better if it were one foot lower, and if it took on the appearance of a more deliberate vertical extension of the brick and bluestone patio. To create this façade, we had to rebuild the wall with bluestone columns that match the tile of the patio. These columns rose up in stately form behind the water and were capped at the top. Wiers jutted out from beneath the capstones and poured water into pool. These wiers were crafted with a thermal finish in a flame detail.

We continued our swimming pool renovation with an expansion of the brick coping. This drew greater emphasis to the body of water within its form, and helps focus awareness on the tranquility created by the fountain. We also removed the outdated diving board and replaced it with a diving rock. This was more attractive, and far more safe as well.

We then extended the entire pool and patio another 15 feet toward the right to give the area a more relaxed, sweeping feeling. We also changed out the spa coping that had a lot of problems. It had an odd shape, so we custom crafted brick interlace coping that would fit the oodd shape. We also expanded the brick coping all around the pool from the original 8 inches to a full 12 inches.

We then expanded the new forms of our swimming pool renovation into the rest of the yard. We began by building a sense of connection to an arbor that stood behind the pool. The arbor needed no remodeling of its own, but it had been previously obscured by the oversized wall. Because an arbor is both a seating area and an architectural focal point of outdoor landscape design, we wanted to generate an interest in its location, and create something that would invite visitors to venture beyond the hardscape into the world under the trees.

To accomplish this, we built a walkway out of bluestone stepping pads that actually extended across the surface of the pool. We also built a terrace and a dining area in front of the arbor to make it a place where people could spend an entire afternoon and evening under the trees.

What is the art of water?

What is the art of water?
It is the use of water features to beautify a landscape

What features make water art and not just water?
The art of water depends partly on movement. When mobile and fluid, water gives the mind a feeling of being freed from form and rigid constructs. To maintain a sense of artistry, however, fluidity must be focused. Some type of geometric boundary or structure is necessary to lend aesthetic to the scene at hand. When these two elements are combined proportionally, the art of water then functions to compliment and reflect both organic and inorganic landscape elements. Vegetation looks more supported by the very stuff of life itself, and architecture becomes more dynamic and preeminent as it is reflected from a variety of angles that magnify its preeminence and sense of proportion.

How does the art of water support architecture?
Fountains are very important elements to landscape architecture. As masonry forms, they mirror the geometry of homes, patios, and outdoor buildings. As water moves out of these structures, it gives life and emergence to these forms. Putting lights in a fountain adds an even greater dimension to the scene.

Reflecting pools and infinity ponds create mirrored surfaces that actually reflect the forms of buildings. Structures then take on new significance, and smaller landscapes can be made to look much larger and complete with this effect.

How does the art of water support softscape?
The art of water is essential to creating a landscape that looks like Nature, so to speak. Even in the driest parts of the world there are rivers, oases, and beaches, so few topographies exist that do not have water somewhere in the scenery. When we create a backyard landscape to represent a wilderness area, elements like natural pools play a very critical role in establishing a sense of getaway from the big city. Streams and waterfalls are two other designs that can be added to a backyard to add a sense of movement and freedom.

More refined European garden designs can be customized by adding water features. Fountains can be placed at the heart of small parterre gardens, for example, in order to magnify their sense of proportion and aesthetic impact. Koi ponds can occupy the central positions of entry garden courtyards. Waterfalls can actually be built to act as lighted walls at night and separate one portion of the landscape from the rest, or even one property from adjacent yards. The art of water in these landscape designs always helps to create a sense life energy that is emerging, dynamic, organic, and diverse.

What landscape designs benefit the most from the art of water?
While the art of water is used in every landscape master plan to some degree, its greatest benefits are seen in contemporary and modern landscape designs. In contemporary landscape design, we find an aesthetic that is extremely mentalist, mathematical, and abstract. Vegetation is scarcer in this landscape style than in any other aesthetic. Consequently, since organic life is minimized, the stuff of life itself—water—is often used as a substitute for vegetation.

Custom fountain work is therefore very important to both commercial and contemporary residential landscapes. In patio design, it adds vertical presence to a horizontal plane. In other areas of the yard, such as the central entryway to the front yard, or in a special seating area in the back yard, contemporary fountains create movement and a feeling of vitality without having to deviate from an essentially inorganic design form.

Modern landscape design is not quite so abstract or inorganic as contemporary landscape design. There is more vegetation, particularly in styles like modern tropical gardens. The art of water here not only adds a sense of life, but it also provides linkage between living elements and nonliving structures. Modern garden décor will often call for a blend of high-grade material constructs, such as glass walls and steel columns, surrounding by plants of various species. Turning the glass wall into the backdrop for a waterfall fountain is a good example of what we mean by water becoming more than water, transforming itself aesthetically into the literal art of water.

Cocktail Pool

What are cocktail pools?
A cocktail pool, by definition, is a small and shallow pool that allows people to walk around the entire bottom. This creates the feeling of being in something of a tropical bar, waist deep in water, where hors d’oeuvres and drinks can be enjoyed in a wet suit in the sun, in the shade, or under the stars and lights of an illuminated aquatic environment.

How does a cocktail pool differ from other pool styles?
It is not so much a difference in style than it is a degree of size. There are a number of design styles that Exterior Worlds can integrate into a Houston landscape master plan. Typically all of these styles have spas within them, and they are built specifically for adults. If a client family has children, we create other environments for the children.

The obvious reason for this is to separate activities which often involve alcohol from immediate contact with children. For more information on how we can accommodate both children and adults in our landscape design services, click here or talk to one of our design specialists.

Who typically wants this kind of pool?
Most often, clients who live on lots of limited size that lack sufficient area to install a larger custom swimming pool.

Do you normally build these water elements near the home or in the back of the yard?
They are normally constructed near the home so guests can come and go from the rear of the home as they please, and so hosts can serve drinks from a convenient bar or serving area.

What are the most popular patio styles you build around these features?
The style of patio varies according to home architecture and landscape theme. The size of the patio will be targeted specifically at the anticipated number of guests that will hosts expect to attend back yard events.

We do not want the patio to fill too much space in the back yard, but at the same time, we never want to construct a surface which in the long run proves insufficient to accommodate the numbers that eventually find their way to the cocktail pool.

What home architecture does it best support?
Due to the expertise of our firm in custom swimming pool design, cocktail pools can be built to support any type of home architectural style.

What organic support/garden design is used around it?
We use plant materials to create a feeling of enclosure around the patio. This gives guests a greater feeling of privacy in the typically smaller yards we tend to build these pools in.

Is these structures ever built near outdoor rooms or kitchens?
Yes. In fact, building them near outdoor kitchens is a great way to separate the eating from the drinking, yet still have both close at hand. Also, some guests of the host may want to have a good time without alcohol. Creating two entertainment zones side by side in this manner gives people choices as well as the convenience of having either choice they make right there, close at hand.

Does this ever have spas, waterfalls, water jets?
Cocktail pools can and do almost always include a spa to give that special feeling of exotic warmth we all tend to associate with tropical locales or vacation getaways. We can also build these pools with swim jets that allow people to swim in place much like a runner runs in place on a treadmill.

Infinity Pools

An infinity pool is a swimming pool or reflecting pool with a negative edge. It is also called a zero edge pool or disappearing edge pool. The intention of this design is to suggest that the water extends beyond the horizon to and vanishes into an indeterminable point beyond—literally into infinity.

Infinity pools are among the most challenging elements of landscape architecture to construct. It requires a great deal of skill on the part of the swimming pool design specialist to create the effect of vanishing water. It also requires adapting the pool to geological formation surrounding the structure. In the Houston landscape this can be particularly challenging due to the fact that we have such flat terrain.

Infinity pools here must be constructed at a high enough elevation to allow water to drop into the unseen realm at the edge of the structure. In actuality, this so-called unseen realm is really a concealed catch basin hidden beneath a weir over which the water flows. The water pours into this basin and is recirculated into the pool by silent pumps.

In order to generate the flow of water necessary to create this silent disappearing act, we have to build the weir at least one-half to one inch lower than the required water level. We also have to build a separate circulation system for the edge flow. Sufficient momentum must be present in the water in order to cause it to run over the weir into the catch basin below.

We also have to be very careful to take into account inconsistencies in flow caused by swimmers. When people swim in an infinity pool, they will naturally displace more water into the edge than normal flow will produce. The catch basin must large enough to withstand this displacement, and the pump must be sturdy enough to return the water to the upper pool.

Without exception, edge pumps in infinity pools are larger and more powerful than the main pool pump for this reason. They also feature very sophisticate filtration mechanisms to prevent the debris that flows over the weir from clogging the pump. A great deal of mathematical calculation goes into designing these edge pumps and catch basins, which might be another reason that the word “infinity” is used as a descriptor for these very special water features.

Beyond the sophisticated engineering they feature, infinity pools create some of the most magnificent scenery in all of landscape design. This is because they are always built in relationship to other points in the scenery. They can function as giant mirrors reflecting the overhanging branches of trees. They can point toward a pond or natural stream, or they can stretch toward open sky and appear to blend blue vastness with water and fluid movement with rainbows and clouds.

Small Swimming Pools

Small pools are very popular in urban areas where there are very small lots and little room for landscaping. Many of these lots have exceptionally large houses on them and tiny backyards. Others have patio homes and townhomes with a predominantly hardscape backyard landscape. Garden designs must be highly customized to home architecture and proportional to the limited space at hand. Swimming pools must be smaller but still provide the amenities and comforts of their larger equivalents on more expansive estates.

This is not as difficult as it may seem to the experienced expert in custom swimming pool design. Small pools are no different than large swimming pools or custom swimming pools. They are shaped just like other pools but are built to a much smaller scale. They can look like luxury spas, geometrically proportional forms, or even giant fountains. The benefits that they offer are anything but small, however.

A small pool can be heated so people can enjoy it year round. Many doctors recommend that arthritis patients invest in these pools because it helps soothe aching joints. Physical therapists also recommend them to patients in recovery from knee injuries and back injuries. Although a small pool may lack the area of a custom swimming pool or luxury swimming pool, it can nevertheless be constructed in a manner that facilitates good, hardy exercise.

The way we accomplish this is to construct small pools with swim jets that create strong currents in the water. The swimmer can face into the current and swim half-laps to the other side, then return to the other side to repeat the process. In fact, many people find that they get better exercise in a small pool than a larger one due to the pressure of the water and the challenge it presents to their muscles.

Small pools are also very decorative additions to a small backyard behind a cottage or townhome. They look tranquil and idyllic when surrounded by a custom garden design or small custom patio. Adding a water feature to an otherwise limited amount of greenery predominated by hardscape is typically all that one needs to alleviate the sense of having too much inorganic form in one’s yard. Water, though not technically organic, is the very stuff of life whose fluidity conveys a sense of movement, dynamism, and even mystery at times.

One way to enhance all of these unique attributes of water is to add a fountain features to a small pool. A custom fountain of any style can be built in a pool provided its dimensions remain in proportion to the pool itself and surrounding structural architecture. One of the most popular styles is the waterfall fountain. Waterfalls can be constructed in any number of forms ranging from the traditionally natural to the deliberately contemporary and modernesque.

They can also be built either at the end of a pool or along the sides. Building a waterfall along the side can actually add a safety factor to your small pool. Since we discourage the use of diving boards due to the hazards they have been known to create, a diving rock can be substituted next to a roaring waterfall that gives a swimmer a much safer way to get into the water and also allows him or her to directly experience the falls firsthand. This can make a small swimming pool look and feel much bigger, and in many instances, magnifies the dimensions of the backyard as a whole.

Reflecting Pools

A reflecting pool is a shallow pool with a very calm surface. It is normally built near another structure or element in order to reflect its form like a mirror. It can be part of a garden, a courtyard, a centerpiece for a backyard, or a standalone feature in a park or urban plaza. More famous reflecting ponds include the reflecting pool in Washington DC, The University of Western Australia, Planalto Palace in Brasilia, and Hermann Park in Houston, Texas.

The remarkably calm water that characterizes these solemn, still masterpieces is created by a simple trick of physics. The edges of the pond are made slightly deeper than the center. This inhibits wave formation and keeps the water very still even when the wind is blowing. In residential landscape design, reflecting ponds are used to link divergent landscape elements into a unified aesthetic of contemplation. The surface of the water acts like a mirror to inorganic and organic forms alike, bringing them together in a single moment.

Reflecting pools are commonly built near large garden sculpture or fountain. This has the effect of magnifying the element and making it appear more prominent on the landscape. They are also popular elements to add to areas populated by outcroppings of trees. When there are only a handful of trees on the landscape, a reflecting pool makes it appear as though there are many more than their actually are. While some areas of Houston, such as the Memorial Area, have an abundance of trees, other parts of town have smaller lots and have fewer trees. Building what amounts to a landscape mirror will make any back yard look larger than it actually is and more like a park area when you walk outside.

Reflecting pools are also built near homes and commercial buildings. This has the effect of extending the edifice of a structure forward into space. In parts of Houston where the new trend is to build up instead of out, reflecting ponds can be a valuable addition to a high-rise apartment community. The vertical presence of the buildings can be brought toward the center of a courtyard build around a reflecting pond that converges in a mirror of angles and shapes in the center of urban living space.

Reflecting pools in these environments are often done with vanishing pool edges. An infinity edge makes the water look like a true mirror in every sense of the term. In the absence of a visible shell or coping, all you see is the water’s edge and the forms that the water reflects. Generally, more contemporary settings call for this effect because of the mathematical connotations it conveys and the sophisticated aesthetic it generates in landscape design.

Landscape architects prefer to build reflecting pools with very dark basins. This prevents the basin itself from reflecting light back out of the water. Only the light that strikes the surface is reflected back toward the eyes—creating the mirroring effect we have been discussing in this analysis. The remainder of the light that penetrates the water is absorbed by the darker hues of the pool basin.

Pool Coping

Pool coping is a masonry product that sits on top of the pool beam structure. It provides transitional space between the patio proper and the surface of the water. People often sit on the coping and dangle their feet in the water. Others prefer to stand on it and peer into the water at night when pool lights illuminate the water from below. Coping should therefore be strong enough to support the weight of a person.

Pool coping is one of those hardscape designs where there is a wide range of choice in what you can do. It can be made from many different materials. Common materials include slate, travertine, concrete, brick, and stone. Material selection is based upon pool style and upon what best compliments patio build out and home architecture.

In one very unique project, we had a couple in River Oaks request that we not build a patio at all, but simply install a coping around the pool that would separate the water from the lawn. We call this our grass patio pool project and it is one of our more famous creations here in the Houston area.

Luxury pool coping is commonly made from either travertine or limestone. Both look amazingly refined when polished and work well with a number of home architectural styles—particularly Italian and Mediterranean.

The texture of the material used is determined by two things. One is how the particular material itself is formed. If it has been sawn, it will appear segmented. Honed surfaces create a more contiguous look. The other factor in creating texture is finish. Coping can be thermal finished, which means that it has been heated with a flame until it appears slightly pebbled with a medium relief.

Pool coping can also be polished to a high level of reflectivity to catch sunlight or underwater pool lights. It can also be chiseled to have a rough-cut look and appear more rugged and natural in collusion with stone patio work.

Pool coping is a major point of focus in our pool renovation projects. It is one of the most significant aspects of pool design because coping can be adjusted to correct elevation issues when lowering or raising the pool patio is not an option.

Pool coping can be either thin or thick. Thin masonry is often used to remodel a pool with insufficient elevation to create a sense of height that was previously absent. This eliminates the need to try to figure out how to lower the deck or pool shell in areas where buried cables or tree roots prevent such alterations in patio design.

Pool coping can be the keynote to your custom patio design as well if you have it done by a professional firm who knows what they are doing. Far more than simply a boundary around the water, the coping rises up to establish presence, geometry, color, and style as a prominent work of hardscape in backyard landscape design.

Swimming Pool Restoration

Swimming pool restoration creates an attractive aesthetic that will stand out in the landscape. Older pools that were constructed in the 70s and 80s were built with standard-grade materials that were rather lackluster to begin with. Over the years, these surfaces have become weather-beaten and even less attractive. By restoring a brighter, newer appearance to these surfaces can make an otherwise ordinary pool look extraordinary at a much lower cost than a complete renovation would entail.

Aesthetically, we work to make the pool more noticeable and to give it a stylistic touch that will last beyond historically dated decorative trends. Tiles are replaced that are more sophisticated in color and texture and that will last beyond the momentary preferences of the present decade. Superior materials that are both more colorful and longer-lasting are chosen based upon their relationship to architecture, hardscape, and softscape elements—not simply the swimming pool itself.

Restoration also involves replacing the plaster that lines the gunite shell of the pool. Laying new, more durable plaster in place of the old helps restore a shiny appearance to the pool interior which adds depth and mystique to the water when illuminated at night.

We also rework plumbing at this time - Drains must be placed a certain number of feet apart to avoid creating suction wells at the bottom of the pool. As regulations have become stricter over the decades, older pools have now fallen out of compliance because their drains are too close together. Moving them to an appropriate distance from one another is a major aspect of swimming pool restoration that must be attended to if we are going to service our clients impeccably and thoroughly.

The experience we have gained over the years in outdoor architecture and custom hardscape design also better enables us to match tile textures and colors to surrounding patio design, outdoor buildings, home architecture, and garden design. We do all of the advance planning work for our clients by choosing the best materials, colors, and textures that will appropriately compliment those elements surrounding the pool. We then sit down with the client and go over these options one by one.

At this point, swimming pool restoration is in a highly consultative phase in the landscape design-build process. It is important to choose the blueprint of design, materials, and colors first before doing anything else. We do not insist that clients go with a particular, singular option, but instead work to frame the project for homeowners and let them consider which of our professionally-recommended courses of action will best suit the needs of their custom swimming pool.

After tile color and texture have been chosen, we also discuss options for new coping. Many different types of materials can be used to build this very significant swimming pool element. Sometimes, when it is not safe or practical to lower the pool shell, we will change the elevation of the coping and surrounding patio and thereby change the elevation of pool access. This proves to be of immense value in situations where there utilities, drain systems, or vital tree roots located near the pool.

Both design elements and the finer details of swimming pool restoration are finalized by the homeowners before implementing redesign. We recommend that clients consider upgrading patios and adjacent garden design at this time as well. This helps ensure a continuous aesthetics throughout the back yard proper, and it further magnifies the restoration work we do on the pool by creating complimentary forms and structures in the immediate environment.

Swimming Pool Renovation

Swimming pool renovation is a design-build service that transforms the existing size, depth, and appearance of an existing pool. The pool shell will often be replaced by an entirely new structure. The geometry of the pool, along with horizontal and vertical measurements of its form, will also change accordingly. New surface areas will also be added to its exterior, ranging from high-grade coping and tile work to spas, water jets, and new surrounding hardscape structures.

This level of redesign is not something the average pool contractor wants to work with. There are too many control grade factors, such as distances between corresponding points, to attend to cost effectively. Pool contractors prefer to build new structures from the ground up, and the focus is always on making the structure workable and attractive as a unity within itself—not a reciprocal element of a larger landscape design.

When our team undertakes a swimming pool renovation project, our entire mindset originates from a much different frame of reference. We approach the task at hand with the intention of creating better landscape architecture through the introduction of a new swimming pool design that will more appropriately compliment home architecture and serve as a more effective aesthetic fulcrum between organic and inorganic elements.

In order to do this, we have to do everything onsite. There are too many factors to consider in the design-build process to work from a drawing board perspective. Whereas the pool contractor plans a new structure in an office, then brings those plans to the location and builds them out, we have to do something completely different. We have to let the landscape design speak to the plan we are developing and work our design into the fabric of surrounding elements. This ensures the outcome of our swimming pool renovation work will be proportional and balanced with its surroundings.

Beginning the design process onsite has other advantages beyond the aesthetic. There are many challenges that face the team each step of the way. Tree preservation is very important to our company. Root systems can travel deep underground and fan out in all directions from tree trunks. We cannot simply start digging out the far end of the pool without first determining if this is going to damage one or more vital roots that could affect the health, or even the life, of a tree.

Drainage systems and utility lines also have to be worked around. The city of Houston does not like it when you cut their gas and power lines—and you won’t like it either if you lose power or gas in your home as the result of clumsy swimming pool renovation techniques. Many different things can be done to work around buried utilities and tree roots, but they must be done methodically and systematically. Rushed jobs by inexperienced companies almost always result in some sort of damage that costs the homeowner additional and very painful expenses.

Swimming Pool Designer

Acting as general contractor and project design specialist, Exterior Worlds works with the best swimming pool designers in the area to help you make your dream for a custom swimming pool—from the simple to the elaborate—a reality.

The list of landscape possibilities for pools is nearly endless and varied. Maybe you want a plush entertainment area. If so, then we can devise a plan that might include a deck design with outdoor gazebo, retaining walls that double as seating, an outdoor room or an outdoor kitchen around a poolscape that was especially designed for you by your selected swimming pool designer. If your dream is for more of a private retreat, we can set the scene with a pool and spa, verdant greenery and a suitable privacy fence, perhaps embellished with antique ornamental iron flourishes.

Following are the broad steps we usually follow as project design specialists in working with you and swimming pool designers:

• As the project design specialist, Exterior Worlds takes an overview of the entire job. This position entails listening to your desires and needs, accounting for the site’s potential and limitations, integrating the pool into your overall landscape design, scheduling the workflow and adhering to budget requirements. Part of this job means recommending the appropriate swimming pool designer and, with more than two decades in this business, we know the true players in this region.
• Our team will visit you at your home to gather information about what your goals are. How will you use the pool? What do you want the pool to look like, the rest of the landscape? We will also assess what is feasible, including measuring the yard and noting sunlight patterns. Our goal is to incorporate your ideas and preferences into a seamless layout that is both elegant and functional.
• The pool designer will then submit the pool’s design for your approval. We will also make sure that you understand what to expect during the construction phase—of the pool and any other elements you have requested. After you have signed off on the plans, we begin construction. Most luxury swimming pools take about two to three months to build, depending on weather.

One team member that Exterior Worlds offers its clients is a designated project coordinator. It has been our experience that pool construction projects that do not have a dedicated coordinator drag on and go over budget. There are numerous steps to constructing a pool and they must be done in a logical order. A tight rein over those steps saves you money.

If your poolscape is older and looks outdated, a remodeling job by Exterior Worlds can breathe new life into it. We can make it look young again, which has the side benefit of increasing your property’s value.

As experts in remodeling jobs, we highly recommend using a general contractor or project design specialist. Remodeling jobs are more technical than new pool construction and require agile problem-solving skills. Additionally, we employ our expertise to keep the pool in scale and relationship with your existing landscape elements.

Call Exterior Worlds at 713-827-2255 for project management of pool construction or pool remodeling.

Swimming Pool Companies

So, if you want to put in a pool or remodel an old one—where to start? Most people think of swimming pool companies, a natural assumption. Swimming pool companies are the people with the skill and expertise to actually build the pool. The construction begins with grading and excavating the site. This phase is followed by installing rebar, or reinforced steel, and the electrical and plumbing work. At this point, the pool is ready for the initial inspection. Once approved, the next step is to spray on gunite, the concrete-like substance that forms the shell of the pool. After it cures, the coping and tile are then installed.

However, to ensure the best final outcome, you should give serious consideration to hiring a general contractor or project designer, like Exterior Worlds, before you even think about the construction phase. As project designers, we are specialists in keeping your custom swimming pool project moving, on track and on budget. Also, through our many years in business, we have developed relationships with the best experts for each particular task, which includes knowing the best swimming pool companies in this area.

We are experts in helping you define the best pool for you and your family. This skill includes developing the right questions and the right answers, such as:

• How best to keep children safe? Perhaps an ornamental iron fence around the pool.
• Will you be using the pool for business and formal entertaining? Maybe an outdoor room, complete with outdoor fireplace and entertainment center, would be enjoyable.
• Do you work long daytime hours and will use the pool mostly at night? If so, Exterior Worlds are experts in landscape lighting.

We are also experts on the codes and regulations in the different cities and neighborhoods of this region. This expertise covers appropriate tree preservation programs to protect the valuable trees on your lot, a skill-set most swimming pool companies do not have. Over the years, we have saved our clients a lot of money in this one aspect alone.

In most of the luxury landscape designs that we work in, the pool is just one element. At Exterior Worlds, we take a turnkey approach to your yard and therefore consider other hardscapes, such as garden structures (to create auxiliary focal points for variety) or pathways (that accentuate the pool as the main focal point).

Some of our clients have a theme for their landscapes, such as a classic landscape design or Mediterranean landscape design, which we take it into consideration when planning the pool. As an example: for the contour of a luxury swimming pool within a classic landscape design, we might suggest an oval or rectangle—in other words, traditional geometric shapes. It acts as a frame for the water and becomes a classic design element itself.

For another idea that is both beautiful and efficient, consider combining the pool with a pool water fountain. It heightens your visual and auditory pleasure of the pool while, at the same time, eliminating some maintenance redundancies of two separate bodies of water.

Swimming Pool Builders

Swimming pool builders are the specialists you call upon for the actual building of the pool’s structure. Their work begins with the groundwork—digging the hole into the desired shape and installing the rebar that becomes the supporting foundation of the pool. The next steps require applying the gunite to the shell and plastering it.

For more than 20 years, Exterior Worlds has served as general contractor and project designer for swimming pool construction. Our expertise includes pools for existing homes, new home construction and pool remodeling. We provide the essential, and often money-saving, service of scheduling the various contractors, such as the swimming pool builder, the mason workers and electricians, so that the project is completed on time. This oversight also ensures that the work flow is logical to avoid having to tear out completed work and start over because one step was out of sequence.

An additional benefit of using our project design services is that we take your dreams and desires for your pool and integrate them into your overall garden design. For instance, you may want to situate the pool so that your summer kitchen opens onto it. Or perhaps your patio design has an outdoor fire place that creates a secondary focal point. We work hard to make sure that all the zones of your landscape design are in proper relationship with each other.

Before you get to the point of needing a swimming pool builder, we will help you go through the decisions of the pre-construction phase, which includes these considerations:

• Material choices. Pool decking, usually some kind of masonry or stone, surrounds the immediate area around a luxury swimming pool. For pool decking, the choice of materials varies depending on personal preferences, preferred budgets and design considerations. We recommend surfaces like stone, brick and concrete as beautiful and durable options because these non-slippery products are good for wet areas. We also encourage our clients to coordinate their selection with any existing materials, as in a mature landscape and on the exterior of their home.
• The extras. Landscape lighting creates additional pleasure—few elements in a landscape have quite the visual power created by the interplay of water, light and shadow. Thus, good landscape lighting allows you to enjoy the pool at night even when you’re not in it. It also makes the pool safer for nighttime swimming. Speaking of safety, we also discuss with our clients the option of a pool fence. An ornamental iron fence around the pool is often a sensible—and attractive—provision.
• Pool options. There are scores of add-ons you can put onto your pool to increase your overall enjoyment of it. For example, spas, caves, natural falls, a pool water fountain, slides, diving boards and vanishing edges. We help our clients think through how they intend to use the pool and what features would be practical, yet enhance their pleasure.

Custom swimming pools turn a backyard into a perfect entertainment area, whether your lifestyle involves business entertainment or creating a fun center for children and teens. Let Exterior Worlds find the right swimming pool builder for you.

Exterior Worlds has been providing landscape services, including project management for swimming pools construction and remodeling, to upscale neighborhoods in the Houston area since 1987. Call 713-827-2255 for a consultation.

Waterfall Landscape Design

Waterfall landscape design is something of a cornerstone in pond and natural swimming pool construction. Perhaps nothing else makes a pond look more natural than a waterfall. We use all natural materials such as boulders and limestone to create the appearance of miniature cliffs. We lay all of these stones by hand, making sure to position them in patterns that emulate rock formations in the wild. By concealing silent pumps just the rear of these formations, we can recreate the scene of a mountain stream pouring over the edge of a mountain into still below.

People typically hire us to build them a swimming pool that is more than a pool to simply swim in. It is a gathering place and an architectural feature as well. Because the swimming pool works on many levels to establish the landscape as a realm of outdoor luxury living, it is not uncommon to build pools with special features such as spas, water jets, and a waterfall.

In one sense, a Japanese garden is a waterfall landscape design in its own right. Originating East as a carefully manicured environment dedicated to sacred space and meditation, the Japanese form has become popular in the West as a water feature and personal locale of seclusion. Not every client of Exterior Worlds wants a Japanese garden for the same spiritual reasons as its historical progenitors, but all who invest in this form note that it brings a remarkably calming effect to their minds and ultimately becomes something of a retreat that is intimately personal and reflective of to their particular way of life.

Some koi ponds are very contemporary in design, looking almost like shallow swimming pools in modern landscapes fill with abstract forms and contemporary architecture. Others, however, are intended to more closely resemble ponds in nature, and for all intents and purposes fall into the category of pond landscape design.

One of the things that waterfall landscape design can add to a contemporary style koi pond is a touch of nature that brings a sense of organic fluidity to the scene without departing significantly from the Mentalism that is the essence of contemporary landscape design.

Custom fountains can be built to look like actual waterfalls, or they can have waterfalls flowing into them. Either form is preferable to the stereotypical three-tiered fountain that has become far too commonplace and generic in the world of fountain décor. Our fountains are designed to convey a type of awareness, a certain feeling of calm tranquility that is uniquely personal to the owner. Unless specifically instructed otherwise by our clients, we tend to replace the three-tiered fountains we encounter with something more personal and aesthetically linked to natural realm.

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.

Pool Landscape Design

Pool landscape design creates a focal point for the backyard.
As important as trees and garden design are to a property, backyard landscapes need more than just greenery to function as effective outdoor living environments. Houston residents who rely upon their backyards for home entertainment and special events need a focal point for activity that offers an equal amount of aesthetics as well as functionality.

A well-constructed swimming pool creates just such a hub for activities and recreation. It represents a special environment connected to all surrounding environments. Regardless of whether or not guests every get in the pool, they will invariably be drawn to the patio, lounge furnishings, and outdoor rooms constructed around its perimeter.

Pool landscape design unites home architecture with surrounding landscape.
Many pool contractors recommend a shape, size, and style of swimming pool that based on the belief that the pool can function as its own independent reality within the landscape. There is kernel of truth in this perspective. Certainly the pool is quite possibly one of the most unique things you will ever find in a back yard. However, the viewpoint that the pool is so unique that it exists separate and apart from its surroundings invariably proves limiting and unworkable from a global aesthetic perspective. Because of its prominence, the pool’s appearance has a powerful subliminal effect on the overall appearance of the surrounding property. If the pool is too large, or if its shape directly clashes with the architecture of the home, it causes a tangible sense of emotional discomfort simply because its appearance does not harmoniously blend with the vegetations, structures, and house that it ideally should be working to compliment.

Pool landscape design differs from pool design in that it deliberately bases the size, shape, and geometry of the pool on the architecture of the house and the surrounding landscape theme.
The home itself is the most preeminent structure on any landscape. It represents the personality and lifestyle of its occupants, and, like it or not, establishes the tone of the landscaping theme in general.

While this may seem a needless statement of the obvious, reflect if you will, for a moment, on all the pictures you have seen over the years that show a swimming pool whose size, shape, and geometry clash with the aesthetic of the home in a similar fashion. Invariably, when a new homeowner buys the property (if they buy it), they immediately notice the angst such a scene generates and look for an expert in pool landscape design who can do something about it.

Our pool landscape design team bases the size and geometry of the pool on both home architecture and surrounding landscape elements.
By this we do not mean that the size of the pool has to mathematically correspond to home square footage. What we do mean is that the shape and style of the pool have to be carefully designed in the landscape master plan so that the pool design compliments the form and proportions of the home.

The geometric shape of the pool does not have to exactly correspond to that of the house either, but it should in some manner or the other compliment it, at least in an indirect manner, without any sense of clash or discord. Custom patios and special copings will then be added at the end of almost every project because these structures are essential design and hardscape elements that function to aesthetically harmonize the pool with surrounding organic and structural forms.

Houston Swimming Pool

What can Exterior Worlds tell us about the advantages of a luxury swimming pool?
A luxury swimming pool completes the design of your home because it is a natural extension of your indoor living space. For an upscale home, it is a necessity. When it comes time to sell your home, it is an expected amenity and also distinguishes your property from others.

Additionally, luxury swimming pools are great for entertaining whether your party is for business associates or for the grandchildren and their friends. Pools provide healthful exercise and, in this part of the world, they supply an enjoyable place to cool off during our intense summer months.

A source of lifelong enjoyment, a luxury swimming pool creates a backyard sanctuary or family center and is for those people who want to maximize their leisure time. You will want to work with a landscape architect or landscape designer to ensure that your other exterior spaces, such as an outdoor room, outdoor kitchen or garden structures, integrate well with the swimming pool design.

What design questions do I begin with?
Here are some of the issues you’ll want to discuss before taking the plunge:

• How will you use the pool? Will it be a play pool for children or are you planning to swim laps? For daily use or for entertaining?
• Do you want it heated?
• Do you want add-ons such as diving boards and slides, underwater benches, a sun shelf, a spa, waterfalls and negative edges?
• Where will you store your swimming pool equipment?
• What about a salt system? There are pros and cons to this popular choice. We tell our Exterior World clients to be aware of the surrounding material choices if they select a salt system since salt has a corrosive effect and can negatively impact soft decking materials.
• What about safety? One suggestion we make is with the use of fences. We like to hide pool fences and gates by weaving them among shrubbery. This method makes the pool area safe, up to code and aesthetically pleasing.

What materials are people using these days for pools?
Quality materials include:

• Your first choice is plaster which usually means marcite, Georgia or Canadian marble that has been crushed to a fine powder. It hardens like concrete and seals the pool’s interior. You can upgrade your look with quartz finishes—Diamond Brite™ and 3M™ Colorquartz, to name two—that come in a wide range of colors and textures. Or a different upgrade is exposed aggregate, a tumbled rock that is slightly larger than quartz. Pebble Tec® and River Rok are well-known brands.
• For the color of your plaster, we suggest a neutral palette that provides a timeless look. If you want something more daring, you can choose from a long list of colors, including dramatic black or green.
• The area that immediately surrounds the pool is called coping. Care should be taken to make it non-slippery, so good choices are tile, stone and brick. Your coping material should work well with the colors of your home’s exterior.

Houston Pool Design

We are thinking about putting in a swimming pool. What can Exterior Worlds tell us about Houston pool design services?
Exterior Worlds excels at working with a discriminating clientele and all their landscape design needs, including the design and build-out of a pool. A major plus in hiring Exterior Worlds to handle your Houston pool design is the overall vision and concern we would have for your project. In general, pool contractors aren’t concerned with the whole landscape design project and make errors, such as setting the pool elevations too low or too high, and disregarding the home’s architecture.

These days, a luxury swimming pool is a necessity for any upscale home in our area. When it comes time to sell your home, it is an expected amenity. Additionally, the pool and all its components complete the design of the home and extend your living space. Swimming pools are great for entertaining, whether you do casual get-togethers, family gatherings or business entertainment. And best of all—as anyone who has endured our long hot summer season will agree—pools provide a natural place to cool off.

As for the design element, you can choose from any number of interesting shapes, materials and plantings. Whatever suits your tastes and needs—from a dramatic play of water to the simple fun of playing in the water. A water-park for children, a cocktail pool, an Olympic-sized pool or a water work of art are just a few examples of pool designs.

What materials are people using in building a swimming pool?
It is an exciting time in pool design, which has seen an explosion of quality finishes. With plaster, the standard is still marcite, which hardens like concrete and seals the interior of the pool. You can find upgrades in a full spectrum of colors and textures. Popular brand names for a Houston pool design include Diamond Brite™ and 3M™ Colorquartz™.

You can also have fun with the color of the plaster. Manufacturers now offer an array of colors for pool finishes—blues, greens, even black. Of course, a neutral palette is always appropriate and provides a timelessness that avoids a dated look when fashion changes.

Coping is the area that immediately surrounds the pool and blends the pool area into your total landscape architecture. Our clients like tile, stone and brick because of their non-slippery surfaces, something that is essential in a wet area.

By the way, if you have an existing pool that needs updating, you can use these materials for that purpose, too.

What are some of the other choices we’ll be facing when thinking about our Houston pool design?
Just to name a couple:
You might want to look into the salt systems, which have both pros and cons. The main thing to be aware of concerns the surrounding material choices since salt has a corrosive effect and it can cause soft decking materials to deteriorate.

Pools are an excellent place to work in a spa or an outdoor water fountain. You’ll not only enjoy them, but get the benefit of eliminating the maintenance of an additional body of water.

Outdoor swimming pool design

Outdoor swimming pool design is a very exciting aspect of landscape architecture. When guests visit, they invariably want to go to the pool. Regardless of whether or not they plan to swim, tan, or gather around the patio for conversation, it is essential to get the pool installed correctly. As an almost immediate extension of the human living experience, swimming pool design must, above everything else, respect home. Its size must be proportional to the house, and its surrounding patio must likewise compliment the surrounding yard. In order to get so many things right, it is best to have professional landscape architects conceptualize, initiate, and develop outdoor swimming pool design from start to finish.

This is because the professional landscape architect has higher criteria for outdoor swimming pool design than the ones pool companies typically specify. There are a number of details that can only be addressed by a landscaping company that visualizes the entire property as a unified whole. Considerations such as the elevation of the water and the depth of each can only be made accurately estimated by the professionals who sculpt the terrain itself. Pool contractors have not been trained in landscaping will often lower these specifications to save clients money on outdoor swimming pool design. This does not pay off in the long run. While costs are saved in the short term, aesthetics are compromised in the long term.

Landscape architects would rather people they ultimately want rather than take financial shortcuts that will ultimately lead to a dissatisfied homeowner. We work with many people with a sense of outdoor luxury, for example, who want to have their swimming pool designed with more than one water feature. Such things as water jets, fountains, artificial waterfalls, and even heated spas can all be incorporated into the design specifications of a swimming pool. This actually saves the client money because installing all these water features as separate elements requires additional materials and contract labor than it does to incorporate them into the pool.

When a professional landscape design services firm oversees and manages outdoor swimming pool design, everybody wins that the end of the day. The landscaper will draw up detailed plans for the pool and show the homeowner exactly how it will function in the new landscape. The pool company will then apply its expertise to building a structure that functions reliably and safely without mishap or mechanical failure. When the finished product is complete, the new custom swimming pool, lit brilliantly with underwater lighting, will look superb in relation to trees, gardens, statuary, arbors, and outdoor rooms.