Swimming Pool Landscape IDEAS

Bergen County NJ – Music Themed Violin Glass Tile Pool Earns Cipriano Landscape Design “Best Pool Design.” The Pool Features Glass Tile & Fiber Optic Lighting.

The homeowner desired a unique swimming pool that would reflect his fondness of playing and collecting violins.

Within the luxury outdoor design and build industry, the most important opinion is always that of the homeowner. Homeowners, with different interests and backgrounds, often want to see their individual tastes reflected in their pools and landscape designs. Even so, we were a bit surprised when our client, who is both an amateur violin player and collector, came to us with the idea of building a pool in the shape of a Stradivarius violin. The client, upon realizing his dream could be a reality, soon wanted more than just a violin shaped pool. He wanted an exact replica in scale of a 1700s era Stradivarius violin with all of its detail and intricacies. The client’s enthusiasm and drive for perfection, paired with Cipriano’s years of experience in building custom pools led to one of the most complex pool designs and installations within the whole design and build industry.

Violin Glass Tile Pool With Custom Features:

• 12-person perimeter overflow spa, with independent LED lighting.
• 2 fish filled koi-ponds, built to resemble the “bow” of the violin, are visible to swimmers via 2 transparent acrylic panels, and are outfitted with 250 fiber optic star-lights.
• Nearly half a million translucent glass tiles designed with a unique 4-way gradient pattern.
• Fiber optic rope lighting detail that illuminates the entire periphery of the pool.
• Violin strings represented by 5760 strands of fiber optic lighting, which glow beautifully at night and can be synchronized with music playing externally.
• Riverflow jet system capable of creating a 2000 gallon/minute current that is strong enough to kayak or swim against.
• 1, 000, 000 BTU heater makes year round use of the pool and spa enjoyable.
• Wireless technology allows the homeowner to adjust any pool settings and landscape utilities directly from an iPhone.
• Underwater audio system makes listening to music possible while swimming laps or playing underwater.

The goal of this swimming pool design was to meet the client’s precise wishes by creating an exact replica of a 1700s era Stradivarius violin. All of the violin attributes were accounted for including purlflings, f-holes, a bridge, strings, a tailpiece, and a chinrest.

The beautiful finish of the violin pool is made up of nearly 500, 000 translucent glass tiles that shimmer across the floor and sides of the pool. Typically gradient tile patterns transition in one direction, or possible two if they are transitioning outward from a centerline. Unique to the violin pool, however, the tiles were blended to transition in a 4 way gradient pattern. To accomplish this feat, the Cipriano Landscape Architecture Office collaborated with the tile manufacturer to assign a numeric value to each sheet of tile from 1-15, based that particular sheet’s gradient transition. Using a design program AutoCad, the Cipriano Landscape Architecture team was then able to carefully plan out the location of every single sheet of tile to ensure that the gradient pattern would transition perfectly to the numerous curves and corners of the organically shaped violin pool. Experienced Cipriano tile setters at the site were then able to precisely follow the AutoCad plan making sure that the finished product would look perfect. This challenging endeavor was accomplished through the Cipriano team recognizing a need for collaboration and their careful attention to detail in the planning phase before construction even began.

The 4 violin “strings” running down the center of the pool, are composed of jet-black translucent glass tiles, and functionally are intended to be used as lap lanes. The tiles themselves are intertwined with 5760 strands of fiber optics that illuminate the lap lanes at night. Properly interweaving strands of fiber optic lighting with glass tiles required extensive foresight, and the ability to simplify a complex design. Prior to the gunite and steel installations of the pool shell, a well thought out detail was followed in order to meet the design requirements, while also maintaining the integrity of the structure. Through proper preparation gained from years of experience, a complex problem was turned into an elegant and functionally finished product.

350 feet of fiber optic rope lighting was also installed to illuminate the entire boundary of the pool. The skilled masons at Cipriano were able to countersink the fiber optic rope beneath the coping of the pool, obscuring it from the vision of swimmers while still allowing the aura emitting from lights to be seen.

The owner’s affection for koi, inspired the design team to incorporate two koi ponds seamlessly into the violin theme. The koi ponds represent the “bow” of the violin, which transect the “neck” of the violin. The two ponds were crafted with numerous platforms, devised to flaunt water irises, lily pads, and other aquatic plants, for those viewing the ponds from outside of the pool. Inside the pool, the koi fish are viewable through two transparent acrylic panels. Once the sun sets, 250 glimmering fiber-optic star-lights make their appearance and create a lighting spectacle.

The acrylic panels were quite difficult to properly install, as they required the coordination of a variety of distinctly skilled craftsmen. A synchronized effort, which required numerous individuals and machines to work in nearly perfect harmony, ultimately was successful.