Whole-Property Landscape Design
Designing the pool inside the plan
The shell is rarely the problem. Where it sits almost always is.
Almost every disappointing pool we are asked to fix was built correctly and placed badly. It sits where the excavator could reach rather than where the sun is at five in the afternoon, or it takes the only flat ground and leaves nowhere to put a table, or its equipment pad ends up under a bedroom window because that was the shortest pipe run.
Position is decided by things a pool contractor is not looking at
Position is decided by things a pool contractor is not looking at: where the afternoon sun falls, where the house doors are, where you would put twelve people, where the shade has to be, where the view is and where the wind comes from. Those are landscape questions, and they are settled before a shell shape is chosen or they are settled by accident.
The equipment pad is a design decision
Pumps and heaters make noise and need service access. Placed for the shortest pipe run they end up against the quietest room in the house. Placed as part of the plan they end up somewhere screened, reachable and out of earshot, usually for the cost of a longer pipe.
The deck, the shade and the kitchen have to be on the same drawing
A pool with nowhere to sit, no shade at the hour people swim, and a barbecue on the far side of it, is a pool that gets used less than the money in it deserves. All of that is decided by the same plan or by four separate ones.
Water features are worth it when you can hear them
Waterfalls, streams and water walls are the features most often added and most often switched off, and the difference is nearly always sound. One you hear from the seating area earns its running cost; one you hear only from the far end of the garden becomes a pump nobody turns on.
Questions people actually ask
Can an existing pool be improved without rebuilding it?
Yes, frequently, and without a new shell. Resurfacing, new coping and tile, new decking, better lighting and re-plumbing an old equipment pad change how a pool looks and runs without a new shell. We will say plainly when that is good value and when it is money spent on a shape that was wrong to start with.
Who actually builds the pool?
The pool is delivered as part of the landscape project Brooks Landscape and Design designs and runs, rather than as a separate trade dropped into a finished yard, so one company is accountable for how the pool and the landscape meet.
How long does a pool take?
It depends on the shell, the access, the inspections and the weather, and any figure quoted before those are known is a guess. We give a schedule once the design is fixed and say which parts of it are outside our control.
The rest of the guide
Whole-Property Landscape Design, one question per page.
- Whole-Property Landscape Design: the complete guideThe hub page: what it is, the sequence, and what one company changes.
- The order of the workNot a scheduling preference. Every stage decides where water goes for the one after it.
- Four contractors, and the seamsThe normal way a property gets built, and the specific places it comes apart.
- Services before concreteThe cheapest decisions on the whole project, and the ones most often skipped.
- Drainage decides everythingThe unglamorous half of the budget, and the half that is still right in ten years.
- Phasing a whole propertyAlmost nobody does it all at once. Doing it in the right order is what makes that cheap instead of expensive.
- What a 3D model settlesChanges on screen cost an afternoon. The same change after a footing is poured costs a demolition.
- One scope, one priceSix quotes for one property are usually six different projects, which is why they cannot be compared.
- The handoverA landscape is a system somebody has to run after we leave. Being told how is part of the work.
- Where this falls shortThe page most companies in our position do not write.
Tell us about the property
Send a few lines about what you have and what you want. We will tell you what we think it takes, what order it should happen in, and whether we are the right company for it.