Beyond the Edge: Redefining Boundaries in Pool Design

Here we see a Lautner or knife-edge pool under construction.

The edge of a pool is more than a boundary. It’s where architecture, engineering, and experience converge. It’s where water meets stone, where reflections dissolve into horizon, where the visible world blurs into the imagined one.

At OHPLC, we believe the edge is not the end of design but the beginning of it. The pool’s perimeter sets the stage for how water is perceived, how light is captured, and how the surrounding landscape is experienced. Done well, the edge can transform a pool from a container into a living work of art. This is lifestyle design. This is Home Reimagined.

Infinity Edges: Dissolving Horizon

Few details are as dramatic as an infinity edge. From the right vantage, water appears to vanish into desert sky, mountain ridgeline, or city lights beyond. The effect is theatrical yet seamless—an invitation to lose sight of boundaries altogether.

But an infinity edge is more than drama. It’s also about perspective. From inside the water, the view stretches endlessly forward. From the patio, the eye is drawn outward into the expanse. It turns the backyard into a stage where water, sky, and desert perform together—fluid, infinite, and alive.

Lautner Edges: The Mirror Surface

If the infinity edge is spectacle, the Lautner edge is subtlety. By allowing water to flow into a concealed slot beneath the deck, the surface becomes flush, still, and mirror-like. Reflections sharpen, sky and architecture double in view, and the waterline itself disappears.

The beauty of a Lautner edge lies in its restraint. Guests don’t always know why the pool feels different, only that it seems impossibly calm—as if the water has been stilled by design. And in truth, it has. This precision is not decorative; it’s engineered artistry, an experience crafted to feel inevitable.

Knife-Edges and Slot Drains: Minimalism Refined

For those drawn to precision, the knife-edge represents the ultimate expression of control. Here, water meets deck in a line so fine it feels almost impossible, disappearing into a recessed trough. Slot drains, invisible to the casual glance, carry water away while preserving the illusion of simplicity.

Executed poorly, these edges falter. Executed perfectly, they are pure poetry—where architecture and water appear to exist in perfect alignment. They demand an exactness that is uncompromising, and the reward is a surface so seamless it looks as though it was born, not built.

Cantilevered Decks: Defying Gravity

Sometimes it is not the water itself but the architecture around it that redefines boundaries. A cantilevered deck, projecting outward with no visible support, seems to suspend both swimmer and spectator above the landscape. Paired with an infinity or Lautner edge, the effect is nothing short of surreal—water meeting sky, structure meeting silence, the earth falling away beneath your feet.

These are moments of tension and release, where the human body feels both grounded and weightless. Standing at the edge of a cantilevered terrace, looking across a sheet of still water, you are reminded that architecture is as much about sensation as it is about shelter.

The Edge as Experience

Edges are not just technical details. They are sensory thresholds. The faint hush of water spilling unseen. The shimmer of firelight doubled in reflection. The vertigo of standing where land and horizon dissolve into one another.

Crossing a pool’s edge with your eyes—or standing at it with your body—changes your sense of scale, perspective, even time. The boundary that once separated water from stone, home from desert, suddenly vanishes. The pool becomes a mirror, a lens, a promise of something greater just beyond reach.

Why It Matters

Too often, a pool is treated as a vessel—something contained, bordered, and predictable. But at OHPLC, we see edges as opportunities. Opportunities to reimagine how water relates to architecture, how architecture relates to landscape, and how all of it relates to the lives lived within.

Because lifestyle design is not about confinement. It’s about expansion. It’s about transforming boundaries into moments of beauty, presence, and connection.

That is Home Reimagined.

To learn more about how OHPLC is innovating pool design, check out our work on IG @ohplc_designandbuild and YouTube at @ohplc.