See-through swimming pool to span a street, 10 stories up
A swanky new development in London will offer a pool with a view.
If you want to splash out on a great view in your next home, then take a look at this "sky pool": a transparent swimming pool suspended between two apartment buildings 10 stories up.
The planned pool will be suspended 35 metres (115 feet) above the ground, bridging the gap between buildings in a fancy new development by the river Thames in London.
"The Sky Pool's transparent structure is the result of significant advancements in technologies over the last decade," said Sean Mulryan, the CEO of Ballymoore, the developer behind the buildings and the pool. Those new technologies will create a pool that's 25 metres long by 5 metres wide (90 by 19 feet) with water 1.2 metres (4 feet) deep. By our back-of-a-napkin maths, that's 150,000 litres of water weighing 150 metric tonnes. Holding back the tide is a hefty but transparent 20cm (8 inches) of glass.
The pool forms part of the planned £15 billion ($23.5 billion, AU$32 billion) Embassy Gardens development at Nine Elms in southeast London, near the iconic Battersea Power Station familiar from movies such as "Children of Men" and from the cover of Pink Floyd's album " Animals." On behalf of the people of Battersea, I'd ask potential tenants to refrain from skinny-dipping.
If you have forgotten your trunks, there's also a walkway between the two buildings.
With the smallest apartment in the development setting you back upward of £602,000 (around $942,000 or close to AU$1.3 million) it's certainly no dive. As well as the sky pool, you'd have access to a spa, summer bar and orangery -- I don't know about you, but consistent access to fresh citrus is always the first thing I check for when looking at a new home.
The sky pool concept was designed by Arup Associates, which also has worked on striking stadia in Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Qatar, and the big pointy bus station a short swim from the sky pool in nearby Vauxhall.
Aquarium designers Reynolds and glass engineers Eckersley O'Callaghan also contributed specialist knowledge. You might say they offered their heartfelt tanks.