Ryan,
Let's see how helpful I can be:

1. Obviously a pond is nothing but a big hole to contain water, plants
and fish to give the pond a life, a sort of water mover to give the pond
movement, and to bring in much needed oxygen, and filtration to remove the
waste from the internal and external environment.
a) I used an epdm liner to line the bottom of my pond to contain the
water.
b) I have an external pump that picks water up from one end, and returns
it through a bio filter and a water fall. (A bio filter can do the two
required filtration, mechanical and biological, remove dirt and debris and
remove harmful contaminants such as ammonia and nitrates)
c) I use a variety of plant materials in a portion of my pond called
vegetation filter or veggie filter. I use the types of plants that absorbs
the harmful nutrients that are the by product of the fish in my pond. Think
excess fertilizer and then plants to suck out the fertilizer)
d) Safety and pond design is almost like oil and water. Reason I say
this is because you would not imagine a natural river or lake with railings
would you? Since most of us are trying to emulate nature with our ponds, we
then stay away from rails and do things like shallow edge, plant barrier,
etc.
e) These links below are from some of the guys around here that
documented their pond construction, hopefully you can get some info from
their sites:
http://www.tiversa.com/pond/index.htm
http://www.geocities.com/bickal2000/pond.htm
http://www.skippysstuff.com/index.html
http://www.therealmckoi.co.uk/?

You may have to monkey with some of the links to get them to work, like
change htm to html, or remove ?, etc. I am not a good computer dude, just
an ordinary architect.

2. I am not clear as to the level of detail you are after (maybe you can
visit some of the links you see at the bottom of our signatures to view
different pond designs and filter designs) Link to my pond is below. Good
luck and please keep us informed as you do your research. Maybe you can
give us suggestions on our perpetual battle with algae, nitrite, nitrate,
ammonia, heron, etc.

--
_______________________________________
"The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is
like an eggs-and-ham breakfast:
The chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."

http://community.webshots.com/user/godwino

"Ryan Cook" wrote in message
om...
I am a student at Derby university in the UK studying Product Design
Innovation & Marketing, I am in my final year and for one of our final
projects we have to design a 'simple pond' for a large British
company. If it is at all possible i was wondering if anybody was able
to e-mail me any information on the following areas; construction,
suitable materials, relivant designs, different features that could be
included (ie, safety features)things that you consider are most
important for first time buyers of ponds. Any information that is sent
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking time to read this.