The Sky Pool is a swimming pool at the

Embassy Gardens Embassy Gardens is a residential and business development built by Ballymore Group in the Nine Elms regeneration zone in London, England, surrounding the United States Embassy building opened in 2017. It features the tranparent Sky Pool for swim ...

development in the

Nine Elms Nine Elms is an area of south-west London, England, within the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies on the River Thames, with Battersea to the west, South Lambeth to the south and Vauxhall to the east. The area was formerly mainly industrial bu ...

region of

Wandsworth Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Gre ...

, a borough of southwest London. It is suspended above the ground and forms a bridge between two tall apartment buildings. Unveiled in May 2021, the pool was criticized as emblematic of economic inequalities in London.

Location

The pool is situated in the

development in the

region of

. It was built by EcoWorld Ballymore. The pool is the world's first "floating" swimming pool, and bridges a gap between two high-rise apartment buildings in the development. It is suspended above the ground. The pool is situated on the Sky Deck of the development and is only accessible to members of the EG:le Club for residents at Embassy Gardens. The Sky Deck also features a spa,

orangery An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large ...

, and bar. The pool is not accessible to

shared-ownership Equity sharing is another name for shared ownership or '' co-ownership''. It takes one property, more than one owner, and blends them to maximize profit and tax deductions. Typically, the parties find a home and buy it together as co-owners, but so ...

residents of Embassy Gardens.

Design

cmglee_London_Embassy_Gardens_pool_polariser

Extending between the two Legacy buildings of the Embassy Gardens development, the pool is heated and is in length; it is the middle section of the pool that is suspended. The roof area was not large enough to accommodate a pool, and so the concept of the "floating pool" was developed. The suspended design of the pool is considered essential to preserve its large size without losing any additional floor space on the roof of the building. Steps into the pool and filtration systems are situated at either end of the pool. ''

Architectural Digest ''Architectural Digest'' is an American monthly magazine founded in 1920. Its principal subjects are interior design and landscaping, rather than pure external architecture. The magazine is published by Condé Nast, which also publishes internati ...

'' wrote that the pool is believed to be the "world's largest single piece of load-bearing acrylic". The

acrylic Acrylic may refer to: Chemicals and materials * Acrylic acid, the simplest acrylic compound * Acrylate polymer, a group of polymers (plastics) noted for transparency and elasticity * Acrylic resin, a group of related thermoplastic or thermosett ...

frame weighs ; it is thick with a thick base and is nearly in depth, resting on an invisible steel frame. The structure that forms the pool was fabricated in the United States, in Colorado, by acrylic engineers Reynolds Polymer, Inc., and shipped from Texas in a three-week journey. It was designed by the structural engineers Eckersley O’Callaghan and HAL Architects.

Reception

The pool opened to residents of Embassy Gardens on 19 May 2021. The opening ceremony was hosted by broadcaster

Roman Kemp Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

and featured a performance by Aquabatix, a

synchronised swimming Synchronized swimming (in British English, synchronised swimming) or artistic swimming is a sport where swimmers perform a synchronized choreographed routine, accompanied by music. The sport is governed internationally by FINA (the ''Fédérati ...

team. A short clip taken by a

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

helicopter of people in the pool was viewed 10 million times. The architecture critic

Oliver Wainwright Oliver Wainwright (born July 1984) is a British architecture and design critic. He has written for the British newspapers ''The Guardian'' and ''The Times'' and is the Features Editor for the industry magazine ''Building Design''. He trained an ...

, writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', described the pool as a "miraculous world first" and a "liquid blue block suspended against the sky" that had the "gravity-defying quality" of a painting by

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...

. Jessica Cherner, writing in ''

'', felt that the transparency of the pool "mak sit appear like a rectangular glass box floating in mid-air".

Sociological critiques

Wainwright critiqued the pool as "a fantastical aquarium of captive high net worth individuals for the rest of us to gawp at from far below". Writing for ''

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...

'', in an article entitled "This Swimming Pool in the Sky Is the Ultimate Symbol of London's Affordability Crisis", Kriston Capps felt that the pool "secures an ultra-elite experience at the cost of casually insulting a city in the grips of an affordable-housing crisis" and that "there is a risk that comes with giving profligate wealth physical form and insisting on its transparency. It’s easy to imagine an excessively, aggressively exclusionary amenity becoming a focal point for anger over London’s extreme income inequality and affordable housing, at a time when activism on these topics is growing more intense". Capps described the pool as an "impossibly wondrous amenity" and a "jewel in plain sight of all but out of reach to almost everyone" and the developers have " angleda potent symbol of inequality over all of London's heads". Writing for the ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

'', Anoosh Chakelian felt the pool was a "compelling visible symbol of the housing inequality and uneven housebuilding rampant in the capital". Songwriter

Grace Petrie Grace Petrie (, born 24 July 1987) is an English folk singer-songwriter and guitarist from Leicester, England. She was hailed in ''The Guardian'' as "a powerful new songwriting voice" in 2011. Biography Grace Petrie began performing in 2006 as ...

said that there was "good reason to hate" the pool "on political grounds". The urban studies academic Rowland Atkinson described the pool as a "cyclopean wet lens" in his 2021 book, ''Alpha City'', and felt that the roof top garden of Embassy Gardens "emphatically express dthe occupation of the city by a global, free-floating capitalist class".

References

External links

'Sky Pool: World's first 'floating' pool between tower blocks' – Video from BBC NewsBallymore Group – EG:le Club amenities brochure
{{coords, 51.4820, -0.1310, display=title 2021 establishments in England 2021 in London 21st-century architecture in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Wandsworth Nine Elms Plastics applications Swimming venues in London