On May 19th, London’s much-anticipated floating sky pool opened to the residents living in the Embassy Gardens Legacy building. The pool was built connecting the two buildings, and has a clear bottom that hovers 115 in the air. If you want people to pee in your pool from being scared…this is how you do it.
There have been other ventures in the past such as clear bottom bridges where you can see all the way down but for pools it’s a bit more uncommon. This pool sits 10 stories in the air, is 25 meters long (82ft) and 5 meters wide (16ft). The water is 1.2 meters high (3.9 feet) and will support 93 tons of water. That’s a lot to be just supported by acrylic siding.
Acrylic naturally expands with temperature changes, and they expect the buildings to move due to natural causes the sky pool is sat upon bearings. This will allow the pool to move with ease as things get moved around. That’s a little scary when you think about it but for things like this we just have to trust the engineers know what they’re doing. Not like when this pool collapsed into the parking garage.
The question on my mind is who wants to swim in it? I’m definitely not this brave but I know there must be plenty of others who are. I also want to know how it’s going to be cleaned and if the person doing it gets paid extra. And I’m sure that bird poop is going to be an issue because it’s an issue everywhere and you literally can’t see this in the air. Think of how many birds fly into glass windows!
On the plus side, it could make you feel like you’re flying without aid, which everyone only experiences in their dreams. There will also be a regular bridge connecting the two buildings if you don’t want to use the sky pool to cross. Or if you want to go somewhere not wearing your swim trunks.
Unfortunately, the sky pool will only be accessible to residents and their guests, but you will be able to see people swimming across if you’re looking up from the street. And if you’re wondering how much the luxury apartments go, prices start at nearly $1 million (USD).
