The Pond Club was the definition of a meanwhile landscape: open fleetingly between May 2015 and September 2016, but with a huge impact greater than the sum of its parts. It proudly occupied the heart of Lewis Cubitt Park as King's Cross transformed through the 2010s, dazzling between the development plots and site hoardings.
BD were appointed by Argent to take Ooze Architects' concept for the UK's first natural public swimming pool through the planning process. The scheme was initially envisaged as a living art installation, and devised as part of the RELAY King's Cross public art programme.
Following planning success, we took on the design team lead and enjoyed working closely with CCS, Willerby Landscapes, PBA and specialist water designers Kingcombe Aquacare during the Club's construction phases.
The 40m-long pond was designed to accommodate over 100 bathers, and was entirely chemical free. The water was purified through a natural, closed-loop process where marginal, aquatic, and oxygenating plants across about a half of the pool's surface filtered and cleaned the water for swimmers. Both the landscape and the pool installation itself utilised a number of recycled materials from the industrial brownfield site including granite cobbles and kerbs.
Framed by colourful wildflowers and textured grasses, the pond's setting changed with every season of its use, and evolved alongside the luscious aquatic planting. This dreamy setting coaxed in over 20,000 visitors during the pond's lifetime, providing peace and the invigorating benefits of cool water within the urban hubbub of King's Cross.
The Pond Club was dismantled after two years as planned, but not before a campaign of local swimmers and dippers attempted to save it. We too really miss the opportunity for a spot of wild swimming in the capital, and hope that this pioneering scheme has and will continue to inspire meanwhile schemes to think adventurously - and in time, influence some permanent counterparts.
