Sacred Geometry: Where Architecture, Mathematics and Mosaics Collide

Some of the most memorable swimming pool designs begin with a grand architectural concept. Others start with something much smaller.

For Ray Corral, founder and creative director of Mosaicist, the inspiration for this South Florida project came from a single window.

The ultra-modern residence offered relatively few decorative cues. Its architecture was clean, geometric and intentionally restrained. The homeowner, however, had given the design team a healthy budget and a straightforward directive: create something spectacular.

“The first thing that popped out at me was this recessed trapezoid window on the corner of the house,” Corral recalled. “It was one architectural element that kept getting my attention.”

That window would ultimately provide the design language for an elaborate mosaic interior featuring a repeating pattern that appears to rise from the floor of the swimming pool.

For Corral, tying the pool back to the architecture made considerably more sense than introducing an unrelated decorative element.

“We always try to bring in a design that ties into the architecture of the home,” he explained. “It gives the project a story, and it’s something the client can relate to.”

Finding The Right Balance

In the luxury market where Corral works, where budgets are expansive and almost anything is possible, restraint can be especially important. Over more than 25 years, Mosaicist has built a reputation for highly customized architectural and aquatic mosaics. Along the way, Corral has become a familiar name on some of Florida’s most elaborate residential projects, including pools for business magnates like Larry Ellison and Arthur Blank, as well as a growing list of celebrities such as Gloria Estefan, Julio Iglesias, and most recently famed rapper Rick Ross.

Working at that level means he has become accustomed to requests that go well beyond selecting a tile color from a catalog.

Some are considerably more unusual than others.

“We’re doing a project right now for some well-known rappers, and they want their faces on the bottom of this enormous pool,” Corral said. “We’re trying to talk them out of it. I tell them, ‘You think you want this, but you’re going to get tired of looking at it, even if it’s your own faces.’”

They apparently remain committed to the idea, and Corral says Mosaicist will ultimately execute it.

The anecdote illustrates a challenge that frequently accompanies high-end pool design. When virtually anything is financially possible, clients understandably want to explore every option on the menu. Fire features, fountains, spillovers, vanishing edges, elaborate finishes and custom artwork can quickly begin competing with one another.

Earlier in his career, Corral said he was more inclined to simply deliver everything requested. These days, he is more likely to advocate for dialing things back.

“We’re always trying to figure out a way to make it tasteful,” he said. “It gets difficult when clients want to bling out the entire pool with every bell and whistle.”

Against that backdrop, developing a geometric optical illusion for a pool incorporating both a Lautner edge and negative edge could almost be considered another day at the office.

Creating Depth on a Flat Surface

The finished pattern resembles recessed cubes or a coffered ceiling, an effect that raises an obvious question: how does an architectural detail from a window become what appears to be a three-dimensional structure on the bottom of a swimming pool?

For Corral, the answer involved taking the trapezoidal language of the window and developing it into a repeating pattern capable of creating the appearance of dimensionality.

“The client wanted something spectacular that no one had ever seen,” Corral said. “This three-dimensional repetitive pattern hasn’t been done like this on the bottom of a pool. But these types of patterns go back to old-world mosaics.”

The effect has roots in much older visual language. Repeating geometric mosaics have long used proportion, orientation and tonal contrast to imply volume and shadow. Mosaicist’s contribution here was to adapt that optical vocabulary to a sharply contemporary pool and make it function within the architectural priorities of the site.

“We were working with threes and sevens,” Corral said, explaining that there were “a lot of different formulas” involved in making the geometry work.

Corral sees a connection between the pattern and sacred geometry, particularly in its use of threes and sevens. The three is readily apparent: three rhombuses, oriented in different directions and rendered in contrasting tones, combine to create each apparent three-dimensional cube. That cube, or hexahedron, is one of the five Platonic solids and was associated by Plato with the element of earth and stability. Seven also figured into the formulas Corral used to organize the larger composition, adding another layer to the mathematical relationships behind the design.

Making the Math Fit the Pool

Translating that intricate geometric design onto the pool floor would be no easy feat, particularly since the vessel had already been constructed by the time Mosaicist became involved.

“The shell was already shot, so now we had to make a design that fit perfectly,” Corral explained.

The homeowner also wanted a dedicated swim lane, creating another linear element that had to be incorporated into the composition. Fortunately, the cube pattern fit three rows across the width of the main pool floor. Getting it to resolve across the entire length required considerably more manipulation.

Toward the ends of the pattern, individual geometric elements were progressively reduced in size to maintain the visual rhythm.

“We had to make those squares a little smaller and then smaller again,” Corral said. “Your eye surprisingly doesn’t catch it. You can’t even really catch it in an aerial photograph, but we had to arrange the mosaic cubes that way to make everything fall correctly.”

That precision extended beyond the mosaic itself. Once installation began, the existing contours of the pool became part of the equation.

“There were a lot of numbers involved in this one,” Corral said. “We had to float the floor because it had too much of a concave shape. Otherwise, the pattern wasn’t going to fit right.”

With a repeating geometric design, those corrections mattered. Small variations that might disappear beneath a conventional finish could distort straight lines, alter the proportions of the cubes and undermine the optical illusion.

Designing Color Around Water and Light

Creating the optical illusion was only part of the challenge. The mosaic also had to coexist with two of the pool’s defining architectural features: its Lautner edge and negative edge. The edge treatments depended on the reflective quality of the water, while the mosaic needed enough contrast to produce its three-dimensional effect.

“We had to figure out what colors wouldn’t come through the pool reflection,” he explained. “When the sun comes down, you still want to enjoy the reflection and the effects of the negative edge and Lautner edge. That’s what the client is paying for.”

Mosaicist developed and tested custom tonal variations within its Celestial Series to provide enough contrast to create the three-dimensional effect without allowing the mosaic to overpower the water from every viewing angle.

Getting there wasn’t simply a matter of choosing colors from a sample board.

“We had to make some color tones, install them and throw them in the pool at my home to see which ones worked best,” he said. “There was a lot of trial and error.”

Water changes how those colors are perceived, so the palette ultimately had to work as a submerged composition rather than simply looking right when viewed dry.

Water was only one variable. Sunlight and viewing position were also considered.

The team studied the movement of the sun and how the pool would appear from different locations throughout the residence. One important sightline was from the second-floor primary bedroom. Corral wanted the simulated shadows within the mosaic pattern to correspond convincingly with the direction of the natural shadows surrounding the pool.

“When you look at it, you’re thinking, ‘This thing is really 3D,’” he said. “We had to put all those formulas together and get the color tones right to make it come alive.”

A New Language for Contemporary Mosaic

Designing and manufacturing a mosaic this intricate is one thing. Making it work inside an already constructed swimming pool is another. That put collaboration between Mosaicist, Environmental Design Group and Southern Pools at the center of executing the concept.

Environmental Design Group helped establish the architectural direction and brought Corral into the project. Mosaicist developed, manufactured and installed the mosaic, while Southern Pools was responsible for constructing the vessel that ultimately had to accommodate it.

“It was absolutely a complete team,” Corral said. “It’s not only how we’re going to design and manufacture it. It’s how we’re going to install it and make the whole thing work.”

For Corral, however, the significance of the finished pool extends beyond this particular residence. Mosaic is an ancient medium that many homeowners still associate with ornate, traditional designs, but this project opened his eyes to what geometric and three-dimensional mosaic could bring to contemporary pool design.

Corral described the project as something of a “glass ceiling breaker” for Mosaicist, opening the door to new ways of using geometry, dimensional effects and architectural forms in modern pools.

That may ultimately be the most interesting part of the project. In the end, the pool reads as part of the house: another surface shaped by the same lines, light and sightlines that define the interiors.

For Corral, that’s the point. Here the geometry of a window didn’t just inspire a pattern. It set a rule: nothing in the water should feel like it was brought in from somewhere else.

Everything that followed, including the math, the calculations, the formulas, and all the trial and error that came after, was just the work of keeping that promise.

Ready to take a deeper dive?

Listen to our entire conversation with Ray Corral on the Pool Magazine podcast.

Photo Credits: Max Borelli & Mosacist