Pools

A decade of pools, across two firms, on hillsides that mostly did not want one.

A pool in Central Texas is an engineering problem wearing a leisure costume. The lots that have the view are the lots that fall away, so the question is never really shape- it is what holds the water up, how far the structure has to reach down to find rock, and what the edge does when you are standing at it.

That edge is the whole design. An infinity edge borrows the valley and makes the water look like it is part of it. A raised spillover wall does the opposite- it brings the water up to you and gives you something to hear. A grotto hides the edge entirely.

Most of these were drawn alongside the house rather than after it, which is the only way the terrace, the retaining wall and the pool shell end up as one structure instead of three.

Not shown. A circular pool with a grotto, built for a friend who has also built several of my houses. It has never been photographed, which is the most solvable problem on this page.