What Are the Top Trends in Swimming Pool Shapes?

One of the first decisions you’ll make when planning your swimming pool design is selecting the shape of your pool. During your vacations, travels and visits to friends’ homes, you’ve likely seen stunning luxury pool designs, and these visions can inspire your own choice of swimming pool shape. And you’ve likely seen wow factor swimming pool designs on Pinterest and Houzz, as well as on luxury lifestyle blogs, further influencing your new pool wishlist. Top swimming pool trends and inspiring images are of course big factors in your choice, and another very important element is the layout of your yard and property where you wish to install your new luxury swimming pool, or extend and re-design your existing swimming pool. For instance, your property may overlook a breathtaking mountain vista, or it might be elongated, or you might have a yard layout that lends itself well to an L-shaped pool that better uses your square footage and adds even more drama to your pool design.

Your swimming pool design company can assess your backyard space, and show you how different shapes of pools could potentially look on your property, and you may very well discover a shape of pool you hadn’t considered before, one that gives you even more luxury pool and spa possibilities, plus hardscaping, landscaping, and outdoor kitchen space that works perfectly with your swimming pool design.

Another reason to consult with the best swimming pool design company to help choose the shape and position of your swimming pool are legal and functional aspects of your pool design. Your town’s zoning regulations, for instance, play a big part in your swimming pool plans. In some areas, pools must be 15 to 25 feet away from the property line, any building or any structure. Slope and drainage elements must also be addressed, including how rainfall and drainage will be handled for your pool design and placement. Pool design and installation professionals have a trained eye, and can guide you through these tricky issues, as an important step in designing your backyard pool area.

Keep in mind that if your pool will be situated close to your home, the architecture and style of your home will likely influence your pool design and shape choices. For example, a pool located closer to your home usually will have more formal lines if your home’s architecture is more angular. If your home or windows have more rounded elements, a pool with rounded lines may be in order. The shape of your pool can be inspired by your home’s silhouette. And if your pool will be located farther out on your property, it might be best styled as a freeform pool that blends in better with your landscaping.

Once your pool design specialist addresses these factors, and shows you how different pool shapes can maximize your pool setting, it’s time to select the ideal shape of pool. Here are some of the top classic and creative swimming pool shapes you may consider:

Classic Pool Shapes

• Rectangle: Geometric shapes are a top trend in swimming pool design, with the straight lines of a rectangular pool being more formal. You might think that a rectangular pool, particularly a long lap-style pool, is a dated look since this was a shape used in early pool design, and a simple way to update the look of a rectangular pool is to round the corners for a softer, less formal look

• Square: Again, geometric shapes add a more formal feel to swimming pool design, and a square swimming pool is included in this category. Square pools can be enhanced by the addition of a square spa attached to the pool, for a rich look that can be further enhanced by a geometric-shaped water wall.

• Oval: Oval-shaped swimming pools create softer, less formal lines in your pool area, and may allow you to make excellent use of your yard’s space, again with the allotted addition of a nearby spa, waterfall, and poolside landscaping.

• Circle: A circular swimming pool again creates a softer silhouette and can be accented by the same pool enhancements as oval or other shapes of pool. One trend with circular swimming pools that adds more drama to this classiest style is creating a perimeter-overflow pool that adds that infinity pool look to this style.

• Kidney-shape: The kidney-shaped pool is similar to an oval, with a curved indentation on one side. Kidney-shaped pools tend to look more natural, and also provides you with a natural positioning for a deeper end, and that indentation space can be used for poolside seating, a waterfall, spa placement or other pool enhancements.

Modern Pool Shapes

• Freeform. Think curvy, with different sizes of rounded shapes comprising this top pool design. Freeform pools are often fully customized, designed around your yard’s nature elements to blend in with nature, and those indentations can be used to locate an attached pool spa, landscaping, or waterfalls. The artistic flair of a freeform pool lets you have the only pool of its style in your area, in a modern look.

• Geometric: An offshoot of the freeform pool, this style lets you customize different square or rectangular portions of your pool’s unique layout.

• Figure 8: With rounded portions on both ends, you get the functionality of lap pool space along the middle, with softer rounded edges. And both ends do not have to be uniform in size, allowing you perhaps better use of your property’s pool space. One side can be shallow for children’s use, and the other size can be deeper.

• L-shaped. Again, maximizing your yard’s layout for more or better pool space, an L-shaped pool can provide you with lap pool space as well as smaller shallow areas. If you have a rectangular pool you’d like to upgrade, adding a side element in an L-shape can be the perfect new pool style for you. Part of this category is the Lazy L-shape, a hybrid of the L-shaped pool, with a diagonal shorter leg of the L for aesthetic flair.

Additional pool shapes include Grecian- or Roman-shaped pools designed with both angular and rounded elements, such as the Roman pool’s outward rounded parts and the Grecian inward-positioned rounded ‘cut-outs,’ one or more of which can be your pool spa’s position.