At the dawn of a Bank Holiday Weekend, we feel a duty to keep our UK readers abreast of new outdoor city swimming pool developments. So to that end:
There’s a brand new outdoor pool-cum-art installation on a stretch of landscaped earth behind London’s King’s Cross station.
At first glance, it just looks like a standard outdoor pool, ringed with industrial red and white stripes and surrounded by the detritus of the area’s massive regeneration project.
But the pool is chemical free, filtered by underwater plant life, and its creators, from urbanist architecture firm Ooze, intend it to act as a comment on nature and the built environment. It’s full title is actually “Of Soil and Water: the King’s Cross Pond Club” and visitors are met with boards explaining the underwater plant filtration system. On the project’s website, meanwhile, visitors are urged to “enter the water and participate in the installation as a piece of experiential art”. Talk about immersive, eh?
Here’s the pool set in its context among building sites:
And here are some excitable swimmers enjoying a first dip (note: jumping in is actually not allowed at this pool, so we’re not sure what these jokers were playing at):
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And these members of the East German Ladies swimming team look absolutely delighted to be submerged at the intersection between art and nature:
Swimmers can book a specific time spot to visit the pool between 6am and dusk here. The pool opens today, and will be around for the next two years.
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