Sky Pool

摘要

The Sky Pool, spanning the space between two towers of EcoWorld Ballymore's Embassy Gardens in London, since opening this summer, became the unintended focus for wider discussions on social equality; but there is no taking anything from the fact that the pool itself, 10 storeys above ground, is an engineering feat, a close collaboration between architect, engineer and fabricator to meet the client's desire for a radical statement at its riverside development. The requirement to fit a 25m pool at 10-storey height, and conflicting rooftop plant demands, spawned the idea of using the pool as a viaduct between the two buildings; it was also directly accessible from both towers. Engineer Eckersley O'Callaghan was brought on board by HAL due to its expertise in the design of glass structures - notably with Apple Stores globally. But interestingly, the firm plumped for cast acrylic rather than glass, despite it having one quarter the working strength and 20 times more deflection under similar loads, says Brian Eckersley. This was partly because acrylic is less brittle and far lighter than glass: 1.2t/m~3 rather than 2.7t/m~3; also, acrylic at the necessary thickness, was far more transparent than glass laminations and it was much simpler to join the component pieces together with transparent bonded joints.