Beyond the Pond: New Ways to Design With Water in the Landscape

Traditional water features only scratch the surface of water's potential. It's the elixir of life for plants, sculpts rock and soil into patterns that inspire our designs, and shapes our moods. If water isn't scarce in your region, tapping its artistic potential opens a wide world—whether working with a pond, pool, or fountain.

Container Concepts: Anything Can Be a Fountain

A poolside table becomes a fountain; its water curtain is as architectural as stone and wood, but alive, engaging senses on multiple levels.

Water can flow from unconventional sources into seemingly solid objects. The pondless (disappearing) waterfall is increasingly common, but possibilities are just beginning. Water flowing into a stone-filled basin with a hidden recirculating pump creates a counterintuitive, visually arresting image.

A Flowform fountain: mathematically calibrated basins maximize oxygenation as water curls in figure-eight currents, creating a mesmerizing sound evoking crashing waves and meandering rivers—soft and sensuous.

An edgeless Cor-Ten steel reflecting pool seeps into a hidden basin. Like an infinity pool, it blends with surroundings. The still water's reflective surface counters imposing structural posts descending into it, creating an otherworldly floating illusion.

Lines in the Landscape: Water as Drawing Tool

We think of water filling predefined forms, but linear containers with diminished edges let water itself draw sharp lines in the landscape. Endless creative possibilities—water substitutes for hard-material lines with breathtaking results.

Runnels (narrow water channels) historically served irrigation and drainage, but make intriguing landscape elements—miniature aqueducts evoking beautiful civic and agricultural waterworks.

Linear water features integrate neatly into other elements, like a low retaining wall. Water moves effortlessly between vessels—fountain to runnel to pool—connecting disparate landscape parts. It can disappear into a pipe for practicality or drama.

The Spirit of Water: Implied Presence

Rain chains: visual tension between gutter and bowl cemented by an ornate chain.

Dry streambeds evoke water without using it. Conventional river-rock approaches are overdone. A dry, rock-filled runnel leading to a pea gravel basin is more aesthetically abstract—still functional as surface drainage.

Water as Sculpture

Water moving through air takes breath away. Silky curtains, diffuse sprays, thundering flows, pencil-thin lines—the arc's trajectory and light interaction (sun glisten, LED illumination) are artistry. This disappearing fountain flows onto a cool-toned light fixture, highlighting form crisply.

Flowing water sets tone with melodic sounds. As a sculptural medium, it creates outdoor rooms. Water is no longer just pond filler—it's a living, moving vehicle bringing landscape to life. About the only thing it can't do? Run uphill.