Syzygy Tile: love it

As any of you who read my blog know, I love love love tile. I'm not sure where the obsession comes from, but if you want to make my day, all you have to do is show me a fabulous tile company that I haven't heard of. So today my day was made. I was lucky enough to get to visit the not-quite-open showroom for BDG Design Group.

There, I found Syzygy Tile, and I just had to share with you. I am not sure images do this tile justice. The glazes have a wonderful Craftsman look to them, mottled and very earthy. The colors are gorgeous! I think it was the mosaics that appealed to me the most, but I had to throw in one of their deco tiles just to show you how fabulously three dimensional they are, like little pieces of architecture.

So visit their website, but more importantly, when BDG opens in January make sure to drop in! While you are there, check out their very own line of concrete oversized tiles. They are very retro-chic, sort of Frank Lloyd Wright meets Mad Men.

Home made garden art

Today's eye candy is a hand made sphere by Mosaic Gardens of Eugene Oregon. It is made of Honey Quartz ledgestones drystacked with some mortar on the inside to add strength. It reminds me a bit of an Andy Goldsworthy rock sculpture. For more fabulous images of their gardens, check out their blog here.

I can't say enough nice things about their work. I adore their use of color in their gardens (foliage color for the most part). In this garden you can see deep burgundy from a Japanese Maple, bold chartreuse from the Ginkgo biloba in the foreground, pale celery green from the Euphorbia 'Tasmanian Tiger' just behind it, all contrasted with the coppery brown of the CorTen steel wall. We don't have the cool wet weather of Oregon, but a lot of these plants will work here.

Re-blogged from Dirt du Jour

This photo was on today's Dirt du Jour post, and I thought it made such a wonderful point that I had to post it here as well. Her point: shrubs are not boring! It is all about how you put them together, like in this gorgeous composition from In the Garden.

I love the subtlety of a flowerless composition! Instead, you notice the form, texture, and foliage color of the plants. With the huge central swathe of lawn, probably not the garden to copy plant for plant in Southern California.... but definitely a great source of inspiration!

Swimming pools by Questar

I promised you more swimming pool eye candy and here it is!

Both of the images here are designed by Skip Phillips of Questar Pools. We are lucky enough to have Skip right here in San Diego (Escondido to be specific), but his pools are famous throughout the country, really the world. Of all of the myriad accolades that Skip's pools have won him over the years, my personal favorite is the Robb Report's "Club 21," the 21 most influential designers of their time. The award that goes to Armani for clothing design goes to Skip for changing the way we look at water features.

These are two of my personal favorites of his. The upper pool is right here in La Jolla, Ca. The lower pool, done in collaboration with Nick Troubetzkoy of Lightstreams tile, in in San Lucia.

So the most obvious thing is the pictures is the mirror effect from the vanishing edge, but there is so much more going on here. Notice how the water feature in the upper pool should be creating waves, but doesn't. By spilling into the spa, the body of water in the main pool keeps its perfect mirror. Also, this pool doesn't just spill over a single vanishing edge- notice that the edge close to the patio is also raised (but where that water falls to is completely hidden!). That brings the mirror effect closer to eye level. And don't miss how wonderful the reflections in the pool are. Think it is by accident that the bamboo creates such a beautiful image in the pool? I don't think so.

Gorgeous spa by Oehme/Van Sweden

I realize that I have been neglecting one of my favorite topics, swimming pools and spas, so it is time to pick up the slack! I think that a lot of people work off of the assumption that swimming pools and spas are functional, and that means that they should be ugly mementos of the public swimming pool from our childhood. I don't know why ugly swimming pools are such a strong element of American culture, but I am determined to be a part of the movement to change that.

I have been lucky enough to get to know a few of the players in the Genesis 3 Design Group, a group dedicated to raising the design standards for the pool industry. If you have never heard of them, take a look at their website, and make sure to click through to the websites of their Platinum members. They are raising swimming pool design to an art form and you'll be amazed by what you see.

The spa I have shown here just blows me away. It was designed by Oehme, van Sweden and Associates (James van Sweden is an occasional lecturer for Genesis 3), who are high on my list of favorite Landscape Architects of all time. If you haven't read their book, Gardening with Nature (or any of their other equally amazing books), please go to Amazon and get it right now. You won't regret it- I'll even give you a link so you can get there easier!

I will try to make up for my sad neglect of swimming pools by showing off some of my favorites in upcoming posts, so keep an eye out!

Modern fountain in Mission Hills

Just in case my love of clean lines isn't entirely obvious at this point, I just have to say that I love this fountain feature! I love the intersection of planes from the tall wall, ground plane, and basin. I like that the moving water, the fountain part of the fountain, is dwarfed by the wall, but the sound still dances around the courtyard. I like the mix of rock sizes in the planters from small gravels to medium sized river cobble. I like the restraint of a single species of plant material (Aeonium 'Zwartzkoff' and please don't quote me on the spelling of that).

This is in a central courtyard of a lovely mixed use building that occupies the entire block of Washington and Goldfinch in Mission Hills. I don't know who the designer is, but if anyone does, please let me know! If you'd like to see it for yourself, you can't see it from the street. You'll have to walk into the courtyard. While you are there, take a look around at the other fabulous plantings!

Fire pits: thinking outside the [fire]box

It is very easy to get sick of seeing the same-old same-old fire pits over and over again. They look like the smaller fire pit photo (left) and they work just fine but they are so dull! Can't we look outside the box a bit more for inspiration?

The fire pit below is a simple indentation filled with rock chips (remember to be careful picking this material- some rocks explode when you expose them to high heat) and the back of it is a panel of CorTen steel with a lazer-etched design of a tree. It would be a great way to reflect the heat into the sitting area. Now, this picture actually isn't real- it is a computer rendering- but as a design concept I like it a lot. What do you think?