It is a rare residential project for us that doesn’t include a swimming pool of one kind or another. Either an existing one to be overhauled or a new one, designed and built from scratch. Consequently, we have gained a wealth of experience over the years designing pools and pool spaces. And during that time, the top lesson we have learned is to always work with the best specialist in their field.
While to the uninitiated most swimming pools will look much the same, there are significant differences in the way they work and function according to Rob Perry, founder of Agua Caliente and one of the country’s leading swimming pool consultants. For him, it is all about the water quality and, most importantly, would he allow his own children to swim in it - something he sadly would not be happy doing in almost municipal pools!
The first swimming pool LA completed with Rob Perry, some 15 years ago
LA have worked with Rob for many years, delivering pools for high-net-worth individuals who demand excellence at every stage of the project. Every new challenge starts with managing expectations, with clients usually wanting the largest possible pool without considering the need for all the necessary plant and equipment that is required to pump and treat the water.
Many clients also want to integrate a pool with a spa and water feature. The trick here, Rob says, is to create the seamless look where everything works together, even though the actual water sources and requirements for each function are completely different.
Camp End Manor’s pool - note the 100mm perspex wall hiding the joint between pool and spa, designed by Rob Perry
Such situations often require a degree of compromise in order to make the maximum use of the available space and accommodate the plant needed to make a pool work, but that’s where it ends for Rob – after that, there can be no compromise on quality.
To quote from his website, Rob created Agua Caliente to fill a gap in swimming pool design for high-specification swimming pools and spas. Most pool contractors have a design department but they often focus on what suits their particular skill base or whatever is most profitable. But this isn’t always best for the client or a particular project, Rob explains.
But what does that really mean in terms of delivering the ultimate pool? For Rob, delivering the best water quality involves routinely exceeding all of the standards specified by SPATA – the Swimming Pool and Allied Trades Association.
In Rob’s view, sand filters to deliver acceptable water quality, as recommended by the Association, “are simply not up to the job” and only represent minimum acceptable standards and, as a result, many pools end up with the equivalent of a “chemical soup”. Instead, he always specifies a glass-based filtration system, which allows the pool to be better maintained, needs less disinfection and less pH-correction, and is a great starting point to harness alternative treatment systems to the standards of purchased chlorine. Delivering the best means dealing with the best, which is why he Rob often recommends user- and environmentally-friendly chemical treatments.
LA have extensive experience of incorporating swimming pools into historic, usually listed, environments - here at Richmond’s Star & Garter luxury apartment scheme
Designing the optimum pool is also about energy savings, where once again the right choice of products and materials is paramount. Rob always recommends pool covers, which deliver rapid and proven reductions in energy use.
Rob admits that his approach has often put him at odds with SPATA, whom he feels should police the swimming pool market more assertively. At the moment, he claims, contractors are able to compete purely on price and minimum standards, not quality of design, specification and service.
One such area of contention is the speed that SPATA says water can be pumped through a sand filtration system. In Rob’s opinion, the recommended speed is currently much too high, allowing pollutants to be pushed straight through the filtration system and back into the pool. This should be reduced almost by half, he says, as major health centre chains such as David Lloyd already do, and they deliver excellent water quality in all their pools as a result.
“The deviation from perfection can be made worse when cost consultants look to reduce costs, particularly when this cost-cutting gets applied to the wrong parts of the job,” says Rob. “We have all heard about problem pools all over the country. Often these problems could have been avoided with quality design and intelligent ‘value engineering’.”
“It has also become quite obvious that getting a swimming pool designer on board early will assist the rest of the design team and will produce a firm tender design and specification for all contractors to quote against. This reduces the confusion and conflict that arises when all contractors offer quotes for different specifications and products.”
Having a trusted pool of professional experts like Rob across all manner of disciplines, who we can pull in to projects as necessary, allows us as Architects to deliver the premium service our clients expect, both quickly and economically.