Lutz · 2023
Lutz family yard
Three children under eight. Designed for the way the yard would be used for the next decade, then the ten years after that.
The build
The brief was a sports pool: flat depth, no deep end, wide enough for a volleyball net and shallow enough that an adult can stand anywhere in it. That is an unglamorous pool and exactly the right one for this family.
A twelve-foot sun shelf at one end is where the youngest two spent the first summer. It converts later, which is the point. In eight years that shelf is a lounge with two chairs in four inches of water and the volleyball net is gone.
We kept a third of the yard as lawn on purpose. The temptation on a build this size is to pave everything, and the clients would have regretted it by the second birthday party.
One detail
Flat depth is a structural decision too
A constant 3 ft 6 in floor means no hopper slope, which makes the shell cheaper to shoot and the plaster easier to finish evenly, but it also removes the deep end's water volume from the hydraulics. The pump and returns are sized for the smaller volume and higher turnover, otherwise a sports pool with standard equipment circulates badly at the ends.
Gallery