Let’s get to know Johnny - the perfect guy for your landscape design.

We LOVE surrounding ourselves with really great people, and when it comes to landscape design, you simply can’t go past Johnny Derwent. Starting out in the landscape industry when he was 19, Johnny studied garden design, horticulture and landscape architecture before heading up Site Design + Studios – an award-winning group of designers, landscape architects, builders and landscape care specialists.

Johnny’s the right guy for us for heaps of reasons – he’s super talented, his designs are stunning, and he’s an absolute genius when it comes to balancing aesthetics with functionality and compliance. He handles the abundance of designs and demands we throw at him on the daily like an absolute pro. But above all that, we love him because he’s just an easy going, legend of a human.

To help you guys get friendly, and learn a little something about design, we sat down with Johnny to pick his brain about pools, design pitfalls, and why he put up his hand up to get involved in our Wanna Win a Pool Competition.

“When people think of pools they think of water,” Johnny says, “but it’s the finish and surrounds that make the pool. I’ve got to believe that when the pool’s done it looks like it was there all the time. You’ve got to look at the space as a whole, and see how everything works together.”

 You don’t have to talk to Johnny for long to understand how much he lives and breathes this stuff. While client’s often have the look of the pool first and foremost in their mind, Johnny has to be across the limits and possibilities of the space, all design aspects that need resolving to gain approval, and the unique needs of the clients who want to build something special. It’s the big picture approach that we have come to love and appreciate in Johnny and something that we apply in all of the pools we build.

“We design for sites, and people,” Johnny says. “You have to see, respect, understand, and work with the space. Sites are all inherently different, as people are different. On each and every job we try to do something we’ve never done before. That’s what’s great about what we do, making people feel like the pool is really their own.”

One of the very first people you’ll meet when building a pool with us is Johnny. Once we’re engaged we’ll come out to site with Johnny to go over your brief and provide advice and expertise on what’s possible and what’s not before going away and getting started on your design. There’s heaps to think about in these initial stages and Johnny says one of the most common pitfalls of pool design relates to compliance.

 “The biggest problem is that every state has a different compliance level,” Johnny says. “New South Wales in particular is super stringent. So sometimes a client will come to us with a picture of this beautiful pool in an American backyard, with no fencing – or this great pool in Western Australia. Unfortunately, the outcomes they’re looking for can’t be achieved if the pool doesn’t meet safety standards.”

Another common pitfall, Johnny says, is actually a really simple one to avoid.

“An issue we come across a bit is clients not being on the same page as each other,” he says. “Complications arise when a couple doesn’t agree on what they want as a unit. Sometimes I’ll nail a job in one go, or I’ll take five times to get the design right. But if the couple isn’t on the same page, things can get a bit messy.”

Since he’s been in the game, Johnny has seen a big shift in pool design trends. Concrete finish copings are really popular now, he says, and while there was a big push 5 years ago for Mediterranean water colours people are making different choices when they consider the needs and limitations of the space.

“We’re finding people are moving away from that whiter blue for their water to that gorgeous deep green, through understanding the context of their landscape,” Johnny says. “Light greys and limestones, and single colours work well rather than mottled colours. You want simpler tones, consistent colouring in the paving rather than variation. But every project is different.”

Regardless of design preferences, Johnny says that to build a stunning pool you can’t underestimate the value of cohesion – all the different elements of the build need to work together to make for a beautiful and functional outdoor space.

“Sometimes you can overburden your backyard with the pool,” he says. “You’ve got to consider plants, levels, the size of the pool, if you’ve got a step, if you’ve got a flat block. Functionality and useability are everything. That’s not to say that in smaller areas the pool won’t work – it can definitely be a visual feature, even if it’s taking up nearly the whole backyard. But the question is how does the pool relate to the other spaces of the property? What’s surrounding the pool? How do the aspects of the backyard interlink?”

When he started out in design, Johnny says he was drawn to it because he just loves landscapes and wanted to create beautiful spaces for people. Fortunately for us, it was this passion that brought him back to working on smaller-scale projects after focussing for a while on large public domain and commercial projects

“I was missing that one-on-one touch in terms of people, in terms of that personal approach,” he says. “I went to the big stuff and then I came back. I still do the big stuff now and then, but the variety of the small-scale jobs – the different landscapes, small courtyards, steep waterfronts – is amazing and challenging. It’s extremely rewarding and a lot of fun.”

When we approached Johnny about our Wanna Win A Pool competition, he blew us away. Not only in terms of his generosity in putting his hand up to design a pool for free for one lucky winner, but also with his trademark humility.

“I’m happy to put in for it because the Children’s Cancer Institute is such a great cause,” he says. “It’s been such a bad time in general but business for us has been good. It’s the trades, the builders, who’ll be giving so much,” he says. “Offering their tools, resources – I’m just giving my time.”

When we put it to Johnny that his experience, intelligence, creativity, and passion for what he does is the absolute backbone of a beautiful pool, and that we couldn’t be more grateful to him for getting on board with us, he was quick to shrug it off.

“To give my time for the sake of raising money for such a great cause isn’t anything,” he says.  “When you guys asked, I didn’t think about it. It was just a yes.”

To get in touch with Johnny click here.

To learn more about the Wanna Win a Pool competition click here.