On May 19th, a new see-through pool suspended 25 meters in the air between two apartment buildings will open. It will be located next to the U.S. Embassy in the Nine Elms neighborhood of London, not far from the Thames.
Spanning the Embassy Gardens’ Legacy Buildings, the Sky Pool is the world’s first ‘floating’ swimming pool. Once installed, the 25-meter long acrylic pool will allow members of the development’s exclusive Eg:le Club to glide between buildings 35 meters up in the sky.
Once you swim off, you can look right down. It will be like flying
Brian Eckersley, Director of Eckersley O’Callaghan, Sky Pool structural engineers
The creative teams gathered to discuss where to locate Embassy Gardens’ outdoor swimming pool. They decided the only space large enough was between the Legacy Buildings. As thinking developed, the gauntlet was thrown down: the pool should be a sky pool, something transparent so swimmers could see the ground, and people below could see the sky.
Embassy Gardens involved Hal Currey and Arup Associates, the architects bringing Sir Terry Farrell’s master plan for the area and development to life. They worked with structural engineers Eckersley O’Callaghan to develop detailed drawings, showing how the 14-meter distance could be spanned by an acrylic structure.
After a series of technical drawings and behavioral analyses, the dimensions of the pool were decided. With sides 200mm thick and 3.2 meters deep, and with a bottom 300mm thick, the 50-tonne acrylic pool will span the 14-meters between the buildings, with steps and filtrations systems sitting either end, and five modes of lighting to add to the feeling of magic.
This year, the Sky Pool will be manufactured ready for transportation to Embassy Gardens, either across land or along the River Thames. If it comes by road, traffic lights and bollards will need to be taken down. If it arrives by river, Nine Elms Lane closed for the day to lift it from the Thames.
