A slab above the water – garden in Bad Tölz
A swimming pond beside the house with an exposed concrete slab cantilevering over it, plus a glass pavilion with an open fireplace and topiary pines.
| Location | Bad Tölz |
| Size | – |
| Design | Jürgen McClanahan (garden plan and planting) |
| Implementation | Fuchs baut Gärten GmbH – Gärtner von Eden |
| Photography | Miquel Tres |
“In this garden, you don’t sit beside the water, but above it.”
The house is white, flat-roofed and austere in its lines. The garden answers not with contrast, but with the same calm: few materials, clean edges, but plants with character.
The swimming pond lies right next to the house, and a slab of exposed concrete cantilevers over its water. That is the trick of this garden: you don’t sit beside the water, but above it. From the slab you look down onto the surface; from the pond it looks like a lid, with the water continuing beneath it. On the adjoining timber deck stands a glass pavilion with a black, suspended open fireplace – so the spot by the water remains usable long after the swimming season is over.
The planting deliberately uses few species and plenty of form: topiary pines, tiered like clouds, large pale boulders and a maple that is the garden’s only loud colour in autumn. It is a style with a Japanese signature – and it works just as well in winter as in summer, because the structure comes not from flowers but from silhouettes. On the productive side there is a raised bed with kohlrabi and lettuce: even a strictly designed garden is allowed to yield something.
What is ours and what is not: the garden plan and planting come from Jürgen McClanahan; we built and planted it. The glass pavilion and the suspended fireplace are not ours – everything around them is: the swimming pond, the exposed concrete slab over the water, the timber deck, the natural stone work and the planting. We state this because in garden photos, everything in the picture tends to be credited to the gardener.
What to know before creating a garden like this
Topiary is a long-term commitment. A pine cut in tiers will not stay that way on its own. Every shoot that is not part of the shape has to go, every year and by hand – with pines by pinching out the new shoots, not with shears. Anyone who loves these images is buying not only the plant, but also the maintenance appointment. We do both: selection and planting and the maintenance afterwards.
And the concrete over the water belongs in the structural phase. A cantilevered slab needs its bearing and its reinforcement before the pond is built – it cannot be added afterwards. How something like this is planned is explained under Consultation and planning.
The installation in numbers
From the project data sheet of our system partner BIOTOP for this installation.
| Swimming area | 27 m², 2.0 m deep |
| Mineral filter area | 76 m² |
| Construction | Angle construction with liner sealing |
| Liner | anthracite grey (Sika WT 5300-13C) |
| Surface cleaning | Arc-screen skimmer |
| Water circuit | Submersible pump chamber, circulation pump Oase gravity Eco 20,000 |
| Additionally | Stream with its own pump (Aquamax Expert 20,000) |
There are two things here that you can’t see in the pictures. First, this installation includes a stream with its own pump – water that travels a distance before it returns. Second, the proportions: 27 square metres of swimming area, but 76 square metres of filter area. Almost three times as much. At our pond in Berchtesgaden it is nearly balanced. So much cleaning area for so little water means reserve capacity: heatwaves, pollen in May or a busy Sunday change little here. That is why this water looks so still and clear in the photos.
And the construction method explains the form. With angle construction, the separation between swimming and planting zones is created from prefabricated angle elements that are slotted together – the swimming area can be laid out at an exact right angle, while the planting zone runs freely around it. Without this edge, the cantilevered concrete slab over the water would not exist. A comparison of the construction methods can be found under Swimming Pond.
The photographs were taken in August 2015. For the pond’s construction type, see Swimming Pond.
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