Six functions of garden water features

Water features such as sculptural, decorative fountains provide a central focal point in large-scale gardens and public environments, while even in smaller private gardens, features such as small ponds and rocky watercourses are proven to expand the space, both visually and through the soothing sound of natural flowing water.

With their aesthetic decoration and atmospheric audio comfort, carefully selected water features also improve air quality and temperatures in the ultra-local climate, while increasing bio-diversity by building new habitats for our water-dwelling friends as well. Whether traditional or contemporary, here are some of the different advantages a water feature can bring.

Being soothed to sleep or gently woken by the sound of water is a luxury you don’t need an ocean sounds playlist to enjoy. In even the smallest outdoor spaces, water features can be integrated into the garden architecture. Oase’s Waterfall feature, for example, spouts water through a wide opening in an existing wall, before audibly splashing down into a waiting water reserve. Alternatively, if no suitable wall or standing water exists, the free-standing version projects the stream in a clean, wide waterfall, circular curved dome or one that fountains upwards.

It’s not just a home’s exterior space that benefits from inviting residential water to stay, meanwhile. The natural climate control, air purification and humidification properties of moving water applies, and is indeed magnified, in interior environments too. C+P Möbelsysteme’s Climate Office waterwall is part of a series of room dividers and screens designed to bring biophilic design into the workplace, but can apply to any project needing space division and cleaner, cooler air. In smaller interiors, meanwhile, where not division but multiplication is required, Oliver Kessler’s sculptural cube-housed Rain3 sits comfortably in a corner and expands the acoustic atmosphere with the sound of falling water.

The concept of bringing controlled rainfall into interior environments brings to mind Random International’s world-touring Rain Room installation, allowing visitors to effectively pass through a heavy downpour without getting wet. At the Apple store in Piazza Liberty, Milan, meanwhile, visitors and shoppers are welcomed into the retail space through a similarly dry tunnel of rain. In splitting two lines of dancing fountains with a 26-foot high glass box, the immersive experience utilises the reflection of sunlight filtering through glass and water to create an environment that changes with the sun.

Shooting like liquid fireworks into the sky, powerful water jets can offer fun and games to over-heating children in public squares, or delighted murmurings and aching necks to crowds of all ages. But you don’t have to recreate the Bellagio to see the benefit.

Simpler arching jets in private settings have the same cooling, decorative and delightful effects in larger gardens. Multiple curved water jet fountains from Oase, for example, collate together to carve variously shaped, spaced and coloured water and light shows, in both public and private environments. Vertical jet fountains like the brand’s Trio, Quartet and Starlet iterations share the same versatility in light and colour, with a shorter radial impact, for impressive performances on a smaller stage.

With bio-diversity a growing concern for humanity, our collected and personal impact on environmental habitats is now constantly considered. The mammoth task of reversing the trend in urban sprawl, however, is often seen as a problem too big to fix with individual action. But there’s no need to think on such grand scales, to make big differences.

Even small, simple water features like ponds, standalone fountains or birdbaths provide homes, habitats, feeding or breeding grounds for smaller wildlife. Bergmeister Kunstschmiede’s WS1 Fountain depicts how, when installed alongside plants and rocks, bio-diverse environments can be created with ease. By adding water-baed plants like water lettuce and waterlilies, meanwhile, elements of texture and colour can also be applied, attracting both pond life and human activity.

Along with wildlife, water is imperative for a luscious, green garden too. But add children into the equation, and the result quickly turns from green to brown. With a rusted texture and colour, the Monsieur Fontaine water tap from Cyria has a look of an old-fashioned hand-pump well. The result blends into both traditional and contemporary garden backgrounds and, more importantly, gives children access to water for summer games and mud kitchens, without muddying up the real one.

© Architonic