Swimming Pools
Swimming Pools – Have a Landscape Architect Do Your Swimming Pool Design. Here’s Why
Overall Vision Has Major Value
It is very hard to do a complete backyard landscape design project including a swimming pool design and not pay over a $100,000 for everything in the east bay area. Many projects with larger lots exceed $200,000. When spending that amount of money on anything it makes sense to approach the project with a plan that gives you the best possibility for a great outcome at a fair value.
As outlined on the home page, a swimming pool design is so important to an overall design due to its’ size that it needs to be integrated into the entire landscape in order to optimize the potential of all of the spaces and views for the project. Given this level of importance it only makes sense that the designer be qualified to assess all of these issues. The group most qualified to design any project of this size are Landscape Architects. There is a level of complexity that goes with landscape designs of this value that can create major problems if handled by someone who only focuses on parts of the project. It is easy to waste tens of thousands of dollars on projects like this through lack of detail, lack of coordination, additional items coming up during construction, and things being done twice or not at all due to lack of foresight.
Pool Companies Are Builders, Not Landscape Architects
Swimming Pool companies are anxious to design swimming pools, because they know if they get the emotional response of you loving the swimming pool design they come up with you are likely to hire them for the construction of the pool. Even if you love the swimming pool design they provide, it doesn’t make them a landscape designer who looks at all of the other issues that a Landscape Architect will consider. Did they leave room for the plants to screen the neighbor? What kind of plants would those be? How many people do you usually need to accommodate for the patio seating? How much furniture would that need to be and how big should the space be for that? Where would that fit and not have the furniture blocking flow or views?
Most of the pool salesman and pool builders I have met have never had a landscape design class and most of the older swimming pools we remodel reflect the lack of design understanding in the industry. We see so many blatant mistakes where swimming pools have been forced into areas they shouldn’t be, that one can tell that the primary objective is to sell a pool, not create a great overall landscape design. Let a swimming pool contractor do what they are best at, constructing your pool. They should also help you decide some of the specifics to do with the pool and its’ components. Choose the best designer to create the vision for the entire landscape design and then all of your project has the potential to be its’ best.
