How a Single Pond Sparked a Landmark Watercourse Project
Our work at Halcyon, a retirement community located in Buderim, Queensland, Australia, began with something much smaller. Before any commercial discussions, before any plans for a 40-metre watercourse, came Ray’s Pond. We built this interactive, naturalistic water feature for a private residence within the growing over 50’s community.
Ray’s lot was the only one in the neighbourhood that could fit a pond. This gave us the chance to create something special. We built a 5-metre stream with basalt steppers that flowed into a single 4-metre by 3-metre pond. It was a compact feature, but one designed for engagement. Ray wanted something he could walk around, sit beside and enjoy each day. The process allowed us to show the Halcyon property managers exactly what our team could deliver.
At the time, we were often working in collaboration with Tom from Garden Art. Playing to each other’s strengths, Tom’s in structural landscapes and ours in water features, was complimentary. It made us better and allowed us to play more in the creative. The Halcyon features were no exception.
During the build of Ray’s Pond, Tom pointed toward the large clay-lined dam in the center of the property and planted a seed. “You could do something with that.” At that point, the idea of a larger watercourse had been floating around among the property managers. However, nothing had been locked in. Yet.
As we completed Ray’s Pond, the team at Halcyon began to explore what a large-scale waterway could look like. They came to meet us at the finished project.
The Seed
There’s a large size difference between Ray’s Pond and what would be needed for their commercial project. However, we recently completed another Garden Art collaboration in Maleny that had many similar components. The Maleny project features a large-scale aesthetic set of waterfalls flowing into a dam. It serves as a backdrop for weddings and events.
In viewing the Maleny material, the Halcyon and Development team agreed that a naturalistic watercourse would add the character they wanted for Halcyon. This combination of seeing our work firsthand led them to ask us to take on the larger project. It became our first major commercial installation as a team.
The Brief
The brief was straightforward in intention but complex in execution. They wanted a meandering series of waterfalls that residents could walk around, sit beside and enjoy. A draw card for residents and visiting families to be active, relaxed and engaged within the community. The water needed to flow into the existing dam. This increases the aesthetic and improving water quality through circulation and increased levels of dissolved oxygen. The difference in this design was it would not be serving as filtration. This alone is unusual to our typical lined designs with closed aquatic ecologies.
Sound was also included in the brief. The sound of the waterfalls needed to overpower the noise from the nearby road . This meant staggered, varied drops with a bit of height, width and depth in the falls. This also called for heightened capacity and power in the waterflow which required high-volume pumps. Aesthetically, they wanted something that felt natural but was also impressive. We decided on basalt elements and significant natural feature pieces that aligned with the broader environment of the site.
As the developers were finalizing plans for the remaining site at the time of the brief, there were design changes. This altered what, where and how we constructed this feature.
The Watercourse Build
We abandoned the original position chosen for the watercourse once the civil contractors finalised the stormwater design and environmental engineering for the site. A bio retention basin was required to manage overflow between the existing natural waterbodies throughout the site. We added a fish corridor, or fishway to the site plans to ensure connectivity between existing habitats. We repositioned our new design, slotting our feature between the bioretention basin on one side and the fish corridor on the other.
The build had us working in the middle of an active civil development. Ray’s pond was part of the first completed housing development on site. The second round of housing developments were being cut as we began our own construction. The area had already been shaped by earthmoving equipment, and houses were being cut and prepared on the right-hand side of the block. Logistically, it meant adjusting our timelines to align with other trades, keeping communication tight and ensuring that what we were building would sit correctly within the final levels once all other works were complete. This created a narrow window for construction and required careful coordination.
The slope was significant, and the clay base of the dam required us to think carefully about how to stabilise the whole area and how far into the dam we would go. The dam was low at the time, which gave us the necessary room to build into where the waterline of the dam would sit. Before we could begin shaping the watercourse itself, we spent a full week building retaining walls along the banks sourcing fill from the ongoing civil works onsite. These walls managed the slope, directed stormwater away from the falls and created a safe and stable foundation for the feature. One of the retaining walls included a weathered, 3-ton log sourced from the property itself.
Halycon Falls
Once the foundation was in place, we could turn our attention to crafting the watercourse. The finished design stretched more than 40 meters, ranging between 1- and 3-meters in width at various points with a turnover of 100,000 litres of water per hour. We placed a large, weathered tree stump into the liner, weighing 5 tons, also sourced from the property. Larger stumps and boulders required a mobile crane to lift them into position. As the project sat directly beneath overhead powerlines, the materials requiring the crane lift also required a spotter which was a new labor inclusion for us. Ironically, three weeks after we finished the project, the utility company relocated the power lines.
We installed floating basalt steppers to give residents a way to engage with the waterfalls. We sourced a third weathered stump and added it as a bench seat down by the bottom of the feature. These elements helped tie the entire project into the landscape and created moments of interaction that the property managers had been hoping for.
Slower moments on site, often caused by weather or the movement of other trades, became opportunities to refine stone placements, adjust the flow path and improve the visual balance of the watercourse. We planted the feature with aquatic plants, the Halcyon landscaping team taking on the surrounding plantings. While we usually enjoy the opportunity to plant out the surrounds, the Halcyon landscaping team chose well. Low lying ferns and grasses to tie in with the plantings of local water ways, within its context of the wider site and the tropical-coastal region of Buderim here on the Sunshine Coast.
Award-Winning Watercourse
The Halcyon watercourse brought together every element of our skills as pond builders, landscapers and project managers. Site constraints, civil coordination, environmental boundaries, ongoing development, wet weather and the logistics of working under powerlines all had to be navigated; but it was worth it. The finished feature sits comfortably in the land. It works with the natural ponds above and blends with the broader environment around it. The sound softened the noise from the road above and blends into the clay lined dam below. The feature went on to be Highly Commended twice in Commercial Categories in the Landscape Queensland Construction Excellence Awards, 2024. More importantly, the intention from the beginning was to create a place for people to slow down, and that has become the reality at Halcyon.
About the Author:
With a lifelong career in the landscaping industry, Daniel Taylor has specialised in water features since 2016. Based in Queensland, Australia, Taylor’d Waterscapes uses the Aquascapes method and materials to create “living water” ecosystems and one-of-a-kind pieces of living art in Southeast Queensland and internationally. Daniel is a multi-award-winning Master Level Certified Aquascape Contractor and a qualified Construction Landscaper, Water Proofer, Dogman and Excavator Operator.
