Three main goals drove the design and construction of this one-of-a-kind pool. First, the homeowners wanted a backyard that embodied their lifestyle. Second, they wanted the design to exemplify the unique character of the home, which is part of a Taliesen designed community, where each house has the Frank Lloyd Wright esthetic. Third, they wanted the pool and landscape to be harmonious and serve as an extension of the indoor living spaces.

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Published in Phoenix Home & Garden, September 2011

“Elegance and Comfort Meld in a Designer’s Own Residence” (excerpt)

Water Fountain & Fire Pit Add Distinction

Rows of pavers intersected by grass lead to a wood trellis with grape-bearing vines and a tiled fire pit, with its displays of porcelain spheres. All designed by Kirk Bianchi, a Phoenix Home & Garden, Master of the Southwest.

In addition, an overhead trellis and the sound of water trickling from a wall-mounted fountain was designed by Bianchi.  Bianchi worked in tandem with the owner and interior designer Ashlyn Pohl, integrating her favorite finishes. The font is set within a stone arch and against an onyx backdrop.  The rock-encrusted patio floor is made with stones that come on mesh backgrounds for easy installation.  Ashlyn’s powder-coated aluminum sofas are fitted with cushions covered in weather-resistant fabric.

For the full article, pick up the issue today!

“Valley’s Coolest Pool Designer”

Published in Phoenix Magazine, March 2008

For decades, residents have spent most of the valley’s hot summers wading in ordinary homemade ponds called swimming pools. “What a travesty,” pool designer, Kirk Bianchi says, “These could be sacred pools.”

After studying architecture at Arizona State University in the late 80′s, and after reading about an ex-fisherman who was creating custom water features and swimming pools, Bianchi fell in love with the idea. So he went to work for him and gave up the suit-and-tie gig completely. Now he makes pool design a higher form of art – from reflective pools fed by serene fountains to raised 360-degree vanishing-edge swimming pools with sleek handrails.

“My niche is the fusion of the three disciplines- Pools, landscapes, and exterior architecture, for the ultimate fusion of outdoor lifestyle design,” Bianchi says.

When you were growing up, did you ever climb up into the neighbor kid’s tree house? Wasn’t it neat to be way up there in your own hideout where no one could see you – but you could see everyone? Didn’t you feel powerful, and a bit mischievous, as though you could dream of just about anything?

Contrast that feeling of seeing to one of being seen. Picture yourself standing on the field of a football stadium or on stage in a grand auditorium. What a sense of exposure that is, looking up at all those seats and thinking of so many eye, all on you.

Let me offer another contrast, and then I’ll tell you the point I’m trying to make.

Imagine hiking through a sandy-floored slot canyon near Lake Powell, Utah. Walls of swirling, water-carved sandstone tower above you on either side. You’re really nestled in, You have to squeeze through sideways in some areas as the canyon walls press close. Your eyes tend to stay straight ahead, focused on the goal of passing through.

Compare that sensation to one when you are in a wide-open space, such as out on a prairie or a desert, and there is nothing but blowing grass or sand as far a you can see. Your eyes sweep the scene in broad strokes, and you feel small in a great big world.
These examples all have one significant thing in common, and that is a very clear expression of space. Space is the volume between all the “stuff” we normally think of as being “there.” While we perceive tangible things directly with our five senses, space, we do not.

Space, or a sense of place, is the mind’s composite sum of all the data gathered by the senses into one perceived whole. For instance, most of us focus on the four wall, floor and ceiling surrounding us. But the part we inhabit is between all that. How the stuff is arranged, ordered and sequenced manipulate and expresses the volume of the space within it.

We respond emotionally to our unconscious perception of the space in between. Clients may ask us for sticks and bricks, but what they are really entrusting us to design is their experience of a place. The more thoughtfully one choreographs the spatial qualities of a design to affect the experience as one moves through it, the more exciting it will be.

To understand spatial design, you need to grasp one thing first: The observer perceives space by moving through it three dimensionally. As a person passes through, new things come into the picture and are revealed as other things fade out of sight and are concealed.

Designers direct the order in which people will experience an environment, planning what observers will see, hear, smell and touch as they reach different vantage points. It’s very much like the way a movie director controls the camera and lighting conditions in a scene to produce a desired emotional effect and sequence.

As people move through space, three characteristics of the environment are always changing: scale, enclosure and visibility. Designers manipulate these scene attributes differently, depending on how the space will be used.

On a human scale

When we talk about scale in architecture, we are usually referring to human scale – the size of an object relative to the observer. Is it overpowering because it’s too big? Is it too small to make an impact? Or is it just right?

Designers can choose to articulate scale, or to create mystery by hiding it. It isn’t only a matter of making something big or small, but also whether to offer the details a viewer needs to perceive its true size. This involves breaking up an imponderable expanse into equally sized, human-scale modules.

A skyscraper hundreds of feet tall, for example, can be more easily understood if each of its floors is demarcated on its surface. That way you can walk up to the building, see that the second story window is 4 feet above your head, assume that each floor is 10 feet tall, and then figure that if it’s got 40 floors’ worth of windows, the building is about 400 feet tall. Intuitively, the building is understood.

A place that I noticed recently that illustrates the mysterious side of the spectrum is the Luxor Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Most of the buildings in Vegas have their floors and windows articulated visibly on their facade, but the Luxor is simply a huge black glass pyramid with no discernible segmentation. The building is huge, 350 feet tall at its peak, but you can’t really understand its size while standing at its base because there are no increments to help you break it down. Your gazing point, the tip, could be 50 feet or 450 feet away.

Now let’s apply the idea of scale to the backyard. Sometimes a space can be so large that it’s too much – you feel like you’re out in the open, unprotected and unsheltered. If you can break it into bite-size pieces, people can relate to it better.

But how? I once designed a corridor that was 100 feet long by 8 feet wide. I had the choice of creating a sea of one material, like a parking lot. Instead, I broke it lengthwise into 10 foot increments. The surface was exposed aggregate, but I introduced 16-inch-wide bands of cantera stone to create the segments. With the expanse broken down, the perception of depth was enhanced – a person could tell without even thinking about it that the corridor was 100 feet long.

How cozy

Enclosure affects the perception of space in one of two ways. Close spaces bring a sense of tension to an environment, spurring you to move ahead. Openness does the opposite, inviting you to stay right where you are. Think of water flowing in a wide, deep channel vs. a tight, narrow channel. In an open area, water is free to move about at a slower pace, while in a tighter area, the compression forces it to move along more rapidly.

You can use enclosure as a device to create a sense of anticipation. When designing a path toward a garden’s climactic vantage point, for example, you can compress the space gradually as the path approaches your visual centerpiece. Progressively narrow the path, lower the ceiling or tree canopy, or elevate the floor plane with stairs or a ramp. The moment signifying that you have arrived happens when the space opens up into a wider view.

Techniques such as this make a project more interactive and tangible. For instance, spaces that are meant to be intimate and private can be nestled in by lower ceilings, umbrellas or low tree canopies. paces that are more public and open have higher ceilings or more exposure to the sky, and feel expanded.

An offshoot of enclosure is the introduction of items designed to attract a visitor to reach out and make contact. The sense of touch offers a cozy feeling, such as when you can reach up to an occasional 7-foot ceiling, where most are beyond reach at 8 feet.

Some water-features are designed to be touched, such as wet walls. Locate benches nearby so that guests can sit and touch it – even within the pool – and you have a fun, meaningful interaction with the environment.

What you see

The final component in sculpting space is the visibility factor whether something is revealed or concealed, and when it comes into view.

A waterfall serves as a visual cue when placed across the pool from visitors, providing a focal point for the garden. But I like to build suspense upon entrance to a space by concealing the waterfall until visitors pass the front door or foyer. This provokes the visitors’ curiosity. They hear a waterfall as they step into the backyard, but they can’t immediately see it. I’m making them look for it. The same works with other senses, such as catching the scent of a fragrant garden that you can’t see from the door.

I often see the cliche of placing the water-feature so it’s visible from the foyer of the home. I object to this. It’s necessary to draw people into the backyard with some kind of focal point, but I like to save the best for last. They don’t have to see it until they are finally drawn into the backyard.

By saving the best for last, you give the visitor a reward for journeying down the path you have laid.

Getting there

Scale, enclosure and visibility serve the designer as tools, but the designer uses them to create spaces of specific functionality. Three kinds of space key to any design are areas of circulation, destination and rest.

Circulation areas
Footpaths, hallways – any space designed to connect points of interest – serve as a circulation area. Sidewalks, stepping stones, stairways and even lawns (think of a fairway) come to mind.

Circulation spaces vary widely, but they share several attributes in common.

Their shape is usually stretched, elongated and narrow. The ceilings might be lower than normal, as though trying to squeeze you out into the next open area. This encourages people to move from one place to another.

Circulation spaces tend to block your view to the sides and focus your attention straight ahead. It’s like putting blinders on a horse: Stay focused.Straight ahead. Keep it moving.

They often feature rhythmic, repeating forms such as colonnades or trees, hedges or stepping stones placed in consistent intervals. This echoes the rhythmic footsteps of pedestrians, encouraging them to step, step, step along.

Finally, the most effective circulation spaces end with a focal point to give the pedestrian a goal. This serves as a magnet, attracting visitors’ attention and drawing them through the space toward the object.

Resting areas
If the journey through the circulation space gets long, or there is a point of interest to be called out, one may create a resting space. The designer can do this by enlarging the width or height of an area of the circulation path, and by providing places to perch such as benches, a small table or other focal point to anchor the space.

Circulation paths intersect in areas called nodes. This intermediate place serves as a decision point in the journey. To call attention to such a space, place a fountain, bench or sculpture in its center. This will encourage visitors to pause and consider the scene and their next step in the journey.

Destination spaces
These ‘happenin’ places in the composition are where visitors want to end up – where groups will visit, dinner will be served and the band will play.

Destination spaces may be public, where larger groups can congregate and be entertained, or private, as in a secluded courtyard off to the side.

The most important trait of a destination space is its focal point – an object of interest that lures visitors from resting spaces and through circulation spaces. Designers can use a specimen tree, fireplace, fountain, sculpture, shade structure or swimming pool.

Even something as subtle as a change of floor material or elevation can call an area out as special. A sunken space uses enclosure to make an area feel more intimate and nestled in. An elevated area uses visibility to put the visitor “on stage” and give those who gather there a feeling of importance.

Destination spaces are often larger or more open than the areas surrounding them. Their shape suggests a stable, static feel. Circular, elliptical, square, or slightly rectangular proportions emphasize that this is a common area where people should congregate. The shapes themselves create the stability – squares and circles have easily identified centers. When you elongate a square into a rectangle of more than a 2:1 ratio, however, the shape takes on movement and length, suggesting
motion.

These spaces are often set off by a clearly defined perimeter such as walls, columns, a grove of trees, hedges or benches. This central focus turns the attention of those who have gathered there inward, toward each other, rather than outward. If the designer intends visitors to appreciate a certain vi ta or focal point, most everything else will be blocked from view by the perimeter elements.

Master Architectural Landscape Designer, Kirk Bianchi discusses the Serenity in your Own Backyard. This Award Winning Pool Builder and Landscape Designer incorporates the surrounding environment into his eclectic vision.

Pool Builder and Landscape Architectural Designer Kirk Bianchi’s Master Creation is Profiled on Phoenix Channel 3′s Good Morning Arizona. This Contemporary Masterpiece includes a 2 Story Waterfall, Negative Edge Pool and Secluded Jacuzzi. Bianchi’s Artistic Vision was also Featured in Aquascape Magazine.

When it comes to shaping space, furniture placement is as important as any other element of a design. I have seen many a design that was done without the furniture on the plan, and that is exactly why it did not work once the chairs and tables were introduced.

In many cases, the plan doesn’t incorporate enough space to support the number of guests the family actually plans to invite, nor the traffic flow required to get people through the area without tripping over each other.

Before I begin designing a space, I always ask my clients how many people will be using the space. Their answers tell me the number of furniture pieces required, which helps determine how much decking is needed and how much space to allow for free movement between areas of the yard. Form follows function.

The orientation of furniture in a space dictates its functionality as well. Furniture should be arranged such that it faces toward those entering the area, or angled in that general direction. This creates a feeling of reception. If you were to walk up to a group seated in a space and they were turned away from you, it would seem as if they were giving you the cold shoulder.

In selecting furniture, its transparency strongly influences how its mass will appear within a space. In a small area, a table made of transparent materials, or with openings such as wrought iron, will be functional without being overpowering. In a large, open area, the same furniture might need to be bulked up, with thick wooden frames and bulky cushions, to have the mass needed to create a presence in the scene.

Bench seating can follow the same guideline. A bench without a back has a much lower profile and will reveal and emphasize its background, while one with a backrest and more mass will be a potential focal point and an inviting feature to approach, in and of itself.

For those of you who think all this artsy talk about space and shape is a bit superfluous or philosophical for your taste, I have a couple of questions:

* What is the difference between a professional building painter and a muralist? They both paint walls.

* What is the difference between a professional horticulturist and a knowledgeable landscape architect? They both specify planting details.

The professionals in the first group have chosen to focus their expertise to the technical and mechanical side of their chosen fields. Those in the second group, on the other hand, have chosen to increase their skills in the art of “why.”

Both are essential to the process, but bring different things to the table. Which are you?

The more you understand both sides, the more sophisticated and professional you will become. That is why the ultimate pool designers are not only schooling themselves in the structural and technical know-how of what they do; they want to know the art and architectural theory behind what they do as well.

I believe that pool designers need to think more like landscape architects in order to create better pool designs. Landscape design and pool design are both very specialized fields, but they’re also very integrated. The best designers know a little bit about both, so they can bridge the two.

Two sides, same coin

Years ago, some senior pool contractors I know asked me why I was spending so much time considering the areas around the pools I had been designing.

“We’re in the business to sell just the pool. Why waste your time on all the peripheral stuff when you could be seeing more pool customers?”

That day I realized that these associates of mine were in a different business than I. True, we both used the same media of expression to achieve our finished objective – building a swimming pool. But while their goals were to build pools at a profit, I seek to build art at a profit. Big difference.

It often surprises my clients when I ask them what they will be doing with the rest of the yard before I even ask about the pool itself. They even poke fun at me – “We thought you were a pool designer”!

“The pool will design itself,” I tell them, “if we first consider all that will be going on around it”.

The best pools do not stand alone. They have impact because they are meaningfully integrated with, and are a natural part of, their surroundings.

Customers face a dilemma in the pool business. They can either call a pool company or a landscape company first, and there’s no way to know if either one will have the foresight to plan the entire yard. Most people call the pool guy first, thinking about how the pool construction will tear up the yard the most. But if the builder is the type to leave out the surrounding areas, when landscapers finally do get called to the site they may say, “If you had just put the pool 5 feet farther that way, we could have put a tree here so you’re not stuck looking at this ugly, two-story building next door.”

Case in point: Have you ever spent time on a design, only to have the customer say for the first time, “We need a wrought-iron fence separating the house from the pool, and we need a bigger lawn so we can set up a volleyball net?”

Back to the drawing board you go! Information such as this is critical up front, because the pool is subordinate to what goes around it.

In its place

Addressing the backyard design is really not all that time consuming. The first step of any landscape designer is what they call the massing and the hardscape design. You’re not really getting specific on the materials, but you at least know, “I need a tree here; I need lawn here; I need a planter here for a focal point at the end of the walkway.”

If you at least do that much, the pool design will relate to everything else.

Design the pool from there. Remember: The water is just a mirror! Ask yourself what this body of water will be reflecting or calling attention to? How well will it showcase what is around the pool? This is critical to its contribution to the scene and its impact on the viewer.

Water is also fluid. Its shape or orientation conforms and is subordinate to the influence of the factors around it. A pool shape should not be arbitrary, nor should it impose itself on the scene. Even if a rectangular pool is desired, its orientation will respond either to the topography of the yard or to other architectural features in the landscape.

After you’ve done these things, you can present the finished design to a landscaper to take it to the next level and detail what plants will go where. Or you could bring a landscape designer on board from the start to layout the backyard.

More to learn

Reading articles such as “Shaping Space” can be a starting point for positioning yourself to take a broader approach to pool design. But beyond this, I recommend that pool builders further their design education with formal study of art and architectural history. It can yield a deeper sense of why people perceive an artifact or place as beautiful, and another not so.

Study the psychology behind design. Learn about proportion, scale, balance, symmetry, asymmetry, additive forms and subtractive forms, texture, color theory, and the use of light and shadow. Find out how people respond to these different factors. If you take the time to study, the sophistication of your design work will grow respectively, and so will your rapport with clients.

Most of the material in this and the adjoining articles can be referenced in one book. It is a must have for those interested in the elements of architectural design: Architecture: Form, Space, & Order by Francis O.K. Ching (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York; 1996, Second Edition; $34.95). It has lots of diagrams and sketches of architecture throughout the world that illustrate the fundamental principles of design. I use it constantly. Enjoy!