keepitgreen.be
ENG
Platform for soccer and golf course managers.
The result is a compact swimming pond with a remarkable circular marsh area. A fine example of craftsmanship from both the landscape architects and the company's construction team.
Tuinen Desoete had already visited the customer several times to maintain the garden when the question of a functional water feature in a prominent corner of the garden was raised. “Although the area in question was right next to the house and terrace, it had been somewhat neglected for some time,” recalls landscape architect Steven Dejong. “The residents wanted to create a place where they could cool off on hot days without having to redo the entire garden.”
The existing garden design was mainly characterized by organically shaped grass paths and rounded plant beds. “A classic rectangular swimming pond would have disrupted this dynamic,” says Dejong. “That's why we decided to surround the rectangular swimming pool on three sides with an extensive marsh area, the edges of which nicely follow the original rounded shape.”
“The walls of the swimming pool are lower than the water surface on all three sides, and we also deliberately omitted the stepping stones that are often placed between the swimming and marsh areas. This allows the water to flow undisturbed across both areas, completely obscuring the rectangular shape of the swimming pool.”
Around the egg-shaped swimming pond, geraniums, anemones, and other flowering plants fill the rest of the original circular zone.
The swimming pool was constructed from concrete blocks; the surrounding marsh area was excavated and lined with stabilized soil. “To make the boundary between the swimming pond and the surrounding plant beds as subtle as possible, we finished the fourth side of the swimming pool—the one that does not border the marsh area—with Wirtz edging stones, and we made sure that the marsh area also had an extremely fine edge.”
Perfect leveling was essential to achieve the almost invisible appearance of the edges. “If the edge were slightly higher in any place, it would immediately protrude above the water surface. An additional difficulty was that the terrain itself was not level. We therefore had to compensate for these small differences in level in another way. We did this with the surrounding plant beds. Everything now seems to flow together beautifully and organically. To smoothly bridge the difference in level between the terrace and the swimming pond, we also added an extra wooden platform.”
The watertightness of the marsh zone and cockpit is guaranteed by a polyester finish. “This finish adheres perfectly to a cement-bound surface and offers extra security, especially for special shapes. After all, it is not a film that you have to cut and then seal the seams. The water barrier is built up layer by layer from polyester on the one hand and fiberglass on the other. You can paint it, as it were, making the round shapes and, for example, the small pool steps waterproof without any problems.”
Compared to the swimming area, which measures six by three meters, the marsh zone in this swimming pond covers a relatively large area. “For a swimming pond built according to the downflow principle, as is the case here, we usually assume one-third marsh zone and two-thirds swimming area. In this case, the ratio is indeed slightly higher, which gave us a little extra freedom in the construction of the filter. As with other projects, we used different calibers of lava and the purifying swimming pond substrate Clinopti, but we were able to select and combine plants more freely.”
