When one thinks of public spaces, the image of a pool rarely comes to mind. Public spaces are the center of civic life, places where most interactions, activities, and behaviors follow strict social and cultural norms to ensure the safety and comfort of all users. In contrast, swimming and bathing represent something more intimate and primordial, a sensorial experience distinct from any other. In addition to the health benefits, the act of floating in space creates a break from everyday life and its constraints.
As social spaces, public baths, and pools offer an even more unusual experience. Here, regular conduct rules and norms no longer apply. Social nudity becomes the new norm, and, as people strip off their clothes, they also lose their status markers, transforming the pool into an egalitarian oasis. Across history, these often-discredited spaces offered a heightened social experience, fostering connections and bringing a new element to dense urban environments. As a typology present since antiquity, public baths and pools have also been a disputed space, as a manifestation of difficult topics such as gender and racial segregation, gentrification, and surveillance in contrast to the freedom they promise.
Les Bains des Docks Aquatic Centre. Image Courtesy of VELUX Commercial
Condensation, maintenance, and humidity are three familiar challenges that continue to test the buildings we design and construct. Whether stemming from climate conditions, limited airflow, or the specifics of construction detailing, these factors affect not only the durability of materials but also the everyday comfort and performance of inhabited spaces. When the setting is an aquatic center or an indoor swimming pool, the demands are even greater. The constant presence of steam, moisture accumulation, and the risk of mold can compromise both energy efficiency and the user experience. In such environments, ventilation and access to daylight, beyond their aesthetic value, become essential tools for maintaining equilibrium, enhancing indoor comfort, and ultimately improving how the space is perceived and utilized.
https://www.archdaily.com/1030573/letting-the-sky-in-4-case-studies-of-daylight-solutions-in-aquatic-architectureEnrique Tovar
Water and daylight? At first glance, they seem like distant concepts: one is tangible, while the other, —though intangible—, manifests itself through its effects and perceptible qualities. Both are powerful and recurring resources in architectural design, often employed only for compositional purposes. However, in the context of indoor pools, this combination is frequently functionally oriented, prioritizing 'protection' from external stimuli. This one-dimensional approach can restrict the dynamic interaction between water and natural light, leading to aesthetic, functional, and operational challenges.
https://www.archdaily.com/1022632/heres-how-to-level-up-indoor-pools-with-daylight-solutionsEnrique Tovar
New York Governor Hochul has announced a partnership with the nonprofit Friends of + POOL to open the first urban river-sourced swimming facility in the United States. Utilizing + POOL’s design and technology, the 2,000-square-foot plus-shaped swimming pool is set to open in New York City’s East River in the summer of 2024. In 2010, four young designers, Archie Lee Coates IV, Dong-Ping Wong, Jeffrey Franklin, and Oana Stanescu, established + POOL with the goal of providing New Yorkers with access to free and safe river swimming. Now the state promised to invest $16 million to pilot and scale the system, hoping to expand it across the state of New York.
Designer pools bring status to luxury homes and five-star hospitality spaces. But adding the cooling, calming, energizing, and environmental benefits of a hyper-local water body to a residence can far outweigh the cost of installation. With a range of long- and short-term landscaping options possible, meanwhile, luxury is available, whatever the budget.
Most pools are built below ground to retain unobstructed visuals above. While all in-ground pools start off the same way – with excavation, then connecting the plumbing and filtration systems – the main difference is in the construction of the pool’s basin. The simplest and quickest method is to lower a pre-fabricated reinforced plastic pool or pre-cast concrete basin into the cavity, before connecting the pipework and backfilling the recess with sand. But this is only suitable for off-the-shelf pools with simple geometries. In order to make the most efficient use of all available space, bespoke pool shapes and sizes are best achieved by pouring or spraying concrete into a rebar or timber frame.
Within architecture, water evokes sentiments of calmness and wellbeing. The element has influenced design through its dynamic and fluid nature. With recent technological advances, architects have created some of the most strategic, innovative, and unexpected intersections of design and H2O.
Below, we have provided a roundup of indoor pools that highlight the application of water in different spaces, showing its relationship to materiality and use.
At first glance, building a pool right beside another body of water seems a little redundant. After all, why would someone choose to swim in a pool when they have a river or ocean to enjoy? However, for people with limited mobility and younger more inexperienced swimmers, natural bodies of water can prove both daunting and dangerous. Pools not only provide a controlled, secure space for them to enjoy aquatic activities, they also provide a connection with the surrounding landscape.
Water and architecture are closely related in habitat design, encompassing both functional and aesthetic aspects. The best option is to take this into account from the beginning of the design process, as implementing appropriate technologies and systems will determine water consumption. Currently, it is our responsibility as professionals to think about how we can reduce and recycle water consumption within our own homes. There are various ways to address these needs, such as installing low-flow devices in faucets and showers, dual-flush toilets, and efficient irrigation systems for landscaping. In addition, rainwater collection and reuse systems can be implemented for irrigation or house cleaning, which contributes to its conservation.
Almost 500,000 buildings have arrived at the Port of Los Angeles in 2021. Well- not exactly. Over 490,000 shipping containers have arrived, though. If there’s a design trend that has caught the world by storm over the past decade, it’s been the rise in transforming shipping containers into buildings as a form of architecture. But are shipping container buildings just a fad that was used to propel ideas about taking every day or is there more substance to creating giant Jenga-inspired structures?
For much of the world, this past year was spent within the confines of our homes, undoubtedly blurring the lines between our public, professional, and private lives and transforming our living spaces into places of work and productivity. This transformation of spaces and how they are used is nothing new in the world of architecture as countless spaces take on various roles beyond what they were originally designed for--a fact reflected in their layout, design, and the materials used within them.
It could be said that one of the main aspects to take into account when designing a swimming pool is the choice of colour for the coating. The light, the shadows, the depth, the environment and the elements that surround it are variables that directly affect the final tonality of the water. The effects of artificial and/or natural lighting also determine the final aesthetic, because if it's located outdoors, reflecting the sky, it will create a different effect than if it's located indoors, where the ceiling would influence its colour.
Brooks + Scarpa along with PCL and BEA, design/build team is one of three finalists selected for a new community mixed-use complex. Located in the heart of Miami Beach, just one block west of the beach, the structure that replaces a municipal surface parking lot, will include pools, libraries, retail, a community center, and a 3-acre park. Designed as a resiliency hub, the building can accommodate future residential and office use when less parking is needed.
From playful indoor pools to tranquil exterior fountains to soaring waterfalls and grand lakes of enormous proportions, architecture throughout the centuries has engaged with water in endlessly innovative ways. Sometimes serving aesthetic purposes, but just as often acting as centers of activity or promoting sustainability, water features can take countless different forms and serve multiple different purposes. Below, we synthesize a series of water features espoused by innovative contemporary architectural projects, ranging from single-family residential homes to vast commercial complexes.
Shipping containers, once a darling of architectural upcycling, have received a lot of criticism recently, as architects are beginning to recognize that their perceived advantages—ready-made habitable space and structure, and an opportunity to recycle a widely available material—are based in little more than hopeful PR spin. But for one of the most prominent practices which regularly uses shipping containers in their work, LOT-EK, the attraction of these architectural ready-mades always went beyond the ecological and practical rationalizations provided by others. In this interview at the firm's New York studio, part of Vladimir Belogolovsky’s “City of Ideas” series, LOT-EK founders Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano discuss the conceptual foundations of their fascination with shipping container architecture.
Following the announcement that the swimming pool—"one of Australia’s greatest cultural symbols—will form the foundation of the Australian Exhibition at the 2016 Venice Biennale, more information has been revealed about what will be presented.
According to the organisers, "eight prominent cultural leaders from various fields have been selected to share their personal stories, using the device of the pool as a platform to explore the relationship between architecture and Australian cultural identity." These include Olympic swimmers Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould, environmentalist Tim Flannery, fashion designers Romance was Born, authors Christos Tsiolkas and Anna Funder, Indigenous art curator Hetti Perkins and musician Paul Kelly.
A new pool has just opened in the heart of London's King's Cross. In the centre of one of the city's largest mixed-use development projects Ooze Architects, in collaboration with artist Marjetica Potrc, have developed and realised "the UK's first man-made fresh water public bathing pond" as a piece of and art. The oblong pool is forty metres long, built two metres above ground level, and is surrounded by "pioneer plants, wild flowers grasses, and bushes so that the environment evolves as the seasons change." It will be purified through "a natural closed-loop process, using wetland and submerged water plants to filter and sustain clean and clear water."
We present to you 15 of ArchDaily's most re-pinned pools on Pinterest; designs which resonate with the profound power of the aquatic. As Lao Tzu reminds us, "nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it," not even architecture. Now come on in; the water's fine.
