The skypool: bringing architectural imagination to life

Autor: Graham Coult
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Glass Structures & Engineering. 6:353-373
ISSN: 2363-5150
2363-5142
Popis: The Sky Pool in Nine Elms, London, is the world’s first fully transparent, suspended swimming pool—allowing residents to swim 15 m between two buildings 10 floors up—and will become a landmark and an unprecedented feat of architecture for the capital. The Sky Pool was conceived as a bold, innovative and thrilling unique selling point for Embassy Gardens, one of the leading riverside development in zone 1 central London that provides 1500 new homes, world-class amenities, 40,160 $$\mathrm{m}^2$$ of office space across two buildings and 12,100 $$\mathrm{m}^2$$ of retail spaces and cafes, bars and restaurants. Phase 1 and Phase 3 of Embassy Gardens was delivered by Ballymore, and phase two by a Joint Venture between Ballymore and EcoWorld. Wrapped around the new U.S. Embassy, the 8ha riverside neighbourhood has a prominent location in one of Europe’s most significant regeneration projects that covers the 227 ha Greater London Authority’s Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea investment opportunity area, Nine Elms London (Development sites, 2021) bringing in 20,000 new homes (Fig. 1). The original concept from the architect, Arup Associates, was to use glass for its construction, however, initial studies showed that the structural glass was not the most efficient material choice. The shortcomings on strength were particularly exacerbated by the requirement of joining glass panels together which provided areas of increased stress. Furthermore, the possibility of damage and expensive replacement brought the idea of using PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate), commonly referred to as Acrylic for the project. The use of casting PMMA in such large sizes presented significant construction challenges, including having to build an entirely new building to fabricate the structure, conceive of new ways to fabricate and bond the panels and to enhance already tight quality control. The design included the structural considerations of the pool being supported by two independent buildings which could sway and settle independently and to control and adapt to the issues of differential thermal expansion.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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