What a timely topic this is for me. I'm starting on a plan for a homeowner who has a 30 year old concrete pool and wants a 'year round' spa. This is an not an unsusual request. It will be too costly ($25,000-30,000) to integrate a spa into the pool so I'm thinking about a 'box 'o water' or a redwood hippie tub as alternatives. Both present design challenges with the other elements the client wants. Now I'm not very far along in the process--just finished the site measurements and am drawing up the base map, so I will be interested in the discussion here.

The fiberglass prefab spa's are not as common here as are the built in ones connected to the pool. These store bought plop plop fiz fiz water box kits are analogous to trailer homes and they sure would be easier to move if they came with wheels.

They can be incorporated into the surrounding landscape to mitigate their common appearance and to avoid the "We are not in Kansas anymore", plopped look.

One way is to make the spa a destination in the landscape and not just as close to the house as you can get it. Another is to think of the spa area as its own garden room and to create and decorate the Room to incorporate it into the larger landscape, not to try and decorate the spa itself. The spa becomes an item in the Room.

This can be done very effectively by placing the spa on a gazebo, within a pergola or in a partially fenced enclosure. This helps create a sense of privacy and intimacy. Now you plant around these elements. This allows free movement around the spa inside the Room, while screening the boxiness of the bubbling cauldron from view.

A few options to consider for the further enhancement of that soothing feeling.

ilima

This ties into the whole site design vs. piece meal design practices. Parts is parts. Pieces parts. (old commercial, I forgot what for - chicken McLugnuts or something).

Here again, if you follow the "start with a plant list" mentality you'll wind up with one thing. If you plan uses, then the ideal relationship between those uses, then analyze the site, then adjust that ideal to the realities of the site, you'll be on the way to something that really works. That is a process.

The question then becomes "who can think that way?". It is designing by reasoning, not by feeling. That is not to say that you have to be insensitive, but that you need to balance you gut feeling with observation and knowledge.

Many of us come from garden designing and building and have added more and more to our repetoire (sp?). Now, do we treat these things like objects to be arranged in a garden or have we gotten to the point where we are planning uses and requirements around other uses? Everyone believes the latter, but as we go around we see enough blindness in this regard that it has to be a fact that it is not so easy.

How do we get from arranging outdoor things such as plants, pergolas, pools, ponds, walkways, driveways, spas, flower pots, or whatever, to be good at planning and programming? Is it trial and error? Is it following a technical process? Do we get from following a technical process to be more automatic about it?

This is a heavy subject about a light hearted hippie hot tub. Wow, man.

How do you (generic you) react when someone says "I want a hot tub right here?". Is it "yes, I can make that work, or do you process the whole idea of where the right place for this should be?

I recently did a job for people who designed their house around a Japanese Maple. It is beautiful. It did cause the alignment of the garage to make it difficult to not hit a guest house as you back out. They could have designed the house to fit the site and paid $1,500 to move the tree to work with the house. That kind of thing makes me crazy. But, we see it all of the time, don't we?

There is that chicken before the egg tendancy...when one gets a wish list from a client that sets the design wheels in motion, it's just another part of the problem to be solved. There's a reason that a planting plan comes last--even though plants and a love of them is what brings people to the discipline to begin with.

Not unlike Laag's Japanese Maple, a little foresight and planning can offer alternative solutions with that might not be immediately apparent. I recently had part of a design driven by the owner's misguided kitchen designer who ran the stove top exhaust to the front of a beautiful wall on the front of the house and housed the sucker in a 2' x 2' by 1'(deep) stainless steel housing. They had to go through the garage to get there and it completely ruined the wall and the saddest part is, that the exhaust could have easily been run to the back of the house. We haven't installed the solution yet, so I can't tell you how it looks!

There is that chicken before the egg tendancy...when one gets a wish list from a client that sets the design wheels in motion, it's just another part of the problem to be solved. There's a reason that a planting plan comes last--even though plants and a love of them is what brings people to the discipline to begin with.

Not unlike Laag's Japanese Maple, a little foresight and planning can offer alternative solutions that might not be immediately apparent. Inside/outside issues crop up frequently as design dilemas. I recently had part of a design driven by the owner's misguided kitchen designer who ran the stove top exhaust to the front of a beautiful wall on the front of the house and housed the sucker in a 2' x 2' by 1'(deep) stainless steel housing. They had to go through the garage to get there and it completely ruined the wall and the saddest part is, that the exhaust could have easily been run to the back of the house. We haven't installed the solution yet, so I can't tell you how it looks!

Good topic. For several years DH and I had a "portable" hot tub, and since we moved quite often for work, we had to make this thing work in at least three different homes in totally climates.
It was (I say was because it finally died last year and was given away to a kid who liked to tinker and hoped to bring it back from the dead) a fiberglass sided square roughly 6 ft X 6 ft X 3 ft deep that had a control box built in. We were restricted by the length of it's cord as to how far from an outlet it could be. (about five feet).

In upstate New York, we set the hot-tub up in our detached garage. We ran through the snow every night from the kitchen door to the garage and back. (Very Cold!)

In Austin, Texas we placed it outside on our deck with a hinged wicker screen and large potted plants providing meager privacy. We only used it after dark when the neighbors could no longer see us.

In our first house in North Carolina, it resided on our large deck under a pergola built for the purpose. That was the best location yet as it was close to a GFI outlet, close to the kitchen doors, blocked from the neighbors view and had an awesome view of the mature trees in our backyard (and the full lunar eclipse that took place in the fall of 2003).

We no longer have a hot tub, don't really want one. I got sick and tired of the constant upkeep. Checking and adjusting the chemicals daily, etc. Much as it sounds cool to have a hot tub situated strategically in some lush garden room in a backyard nook, that just makes it farther to go to truck PH balancing chemicals and shock treatments back and forth, not to mention traipsing around in the dark in spa robes and flip-flops carrying wine bottle(s) and glasses. LOL.

I suppose if we had one in-ground with a pool(and a groundskeeper/ pool-guy) then I might reconsider.

...Jan

Good topic.

I'm dreaming of making bath house pavillion as a destination in my yard.

-There would be nana walls on 3 sides (or a similar cheaper version) so that in good weather there'd only be a roof over it like a tiki hut, retractable screens for the extremely buggy moments, and walls of glass for the winter.

-The views from the tub would be very important - there would be a glimpse of a lake and mass plantings of tropicalesque plants.

-There'd also be a steam shower in the hut and an outdoor shower.

-And some basic landscape lighting with spots on some sculptural plants so we'd have something to look at in the dark.

-For those winter sunday afternoons, it would be great with some direct sunlight.

-Hmm, and if I can site it right, be able to catch some of the sunset views...

As a matter of fact, I'd like to design these kinds of spaces for a living, since landscape design with a tropical flavor, modern bathroom design, and architecture are big hobbies for me (I'm constantly doodling). Also, my family spends a lot of time hanging out in and around water.

OK~long ago post but, I can't imagine anyone not still enjoying their hottub! Granted we have yet to enjoy it in the winter, but, we plan, to have an existing window.... changed to a door, a few feet from the hot tub. Then a patio and a walkway to the existing area connecting an existing patio with a walkway! Can't wait till it's done!