By Jason Cramp
Located 3,000 km (1,865 mi) from their head office in Toronto, staff from Gib-San Pools and Landscape Creations endured extreme weather conditions-between -40 to 40 C (-40 to 104 F)- over three years to design and construct various aquatic features for a client who lived just outside Regina, Sask.
To provide the homeowner with several areas for entertaining, while also complementing the home’s architecture and extending the family’s outdoor living space, Gib-San designed more than 2 ha (5 acres) of the property and was involved in constructing several key elements, included an 8- x 16.5-m (26- x 54-ft) swimming pool with limestone patio, 2.4-m2 (8-sf) spa, decorative water fountain, massive waterfall and pond.
Winters in Saskatchewan are extremely cold and dry, so the swimming pool was built on a 51-mm (2-in) thick concrete pad placed on 15, 6.1-m (20-ft) concrete piers installed below grade to ensure frost would not damage the substrate.
The pool was designed to include several features, such as lounging ledges with water plumes, standing/step ledges and a dual staircase with benches and massage jets. The pool also featured multiple underwater lights, submerged speakers and six fountain jets, which arc out from the coping into the middle of the pool, to provide added character. The pool’s interior was finished in a custom blend of quartz and glass tile, the latter being used to crate a crest and boarder in the floor, as well as along the water line and for intricate details on the steps and ledges. Half of the pool’s exterior walls are exposed with a stone veneer finish-the different levels create more drama for the vanishing edge, which features a black granite exterior finish.
The custom fountain was designed to connect the interior of the home with the exterior landscape. It too features a black granite finish, which acts like a mirror and allows viewers inside the home to ‘interact’ with it when looking through the windows. The foundation features five plumes at various heights to shoot water 1 to 1.5 m (3 to 5 ft) straight into the air.
In constructing the waterfall, boulders-some exceeding 10 tons (10,160 kg)- were transported from a quarry several hours north of Regina. Its height exceeds a two-storey house, with an area greater than 372 m2 (4,000 sf).
