Hi elinitha, this will be the laminex impression decor 'weathered oak' which has both visual (white ingrained) and tactile texture. It will be used horizontally in a beach house. This colour I would recommend your timber feature also, as it looks natural, as in no staining or lacquered aesthetic, and as a finished product, no maintenance, fading and is more durable than a genuine timber product.

You could also consider laser cut aluminium screens which are powder coated in a Corten look finish. We used them in our new house. Screens by Decopanel in Brisbane. We have a real letterbox made of real corten, but were worried about rust staining our floors so used the aluminium for the breezeway screens. Photos below

It might be worth looking further into breeze / besser blocks. This company in Melbourne - http://www.breezeblocks.com.au/ or this one in Sydney - http://www.besserblockcentre.com.au/bellevue_hill_blocks.html create custom blocks. The pool safety requirements have certain dimensions to follow, so maybe you can have your dream feature wall while still abiding by the regulations. For example you could have blocks with a vertical or other pattern that did not allow for foot or hand holds. For example:

I would not recommend bamboo, especially that close to the pool. Bamboo drops lots and lots and lots of leaves and it is also susceptible to salt and chlorine. We planted bamboo (clumping) along the fence in our pool area in Melbourne and although I loved the look of it we took it out last year as it was just too much work cleaning up the leaves. I could have filled our green bin every week and it clogged up our pool cleaning robot. It also started yellowing in one spot that occasionally got splashed and I was told it was due to the chemicals. Once we took the bamboo out we had timber slat screening put up against the existing fence (with consent from neighbor) and have now planted a few lily pily in front. So much easier to maintain now.