JAGS Swimming Pool

Graham-Watts Partnership, London, 2001

 

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The easterly corner 

Charlotte Wood     Download Original

  • The easterly corner    
  • The entrance, with pivotal beach tree to left    
  • The stretched white fabric ceiling continues the cool white theme    
  • Walls of light achieved with extensive external shading    
  • The south-east side, with heated seating for swimmers. Automatic showers are located through the entrance beyond. The services layout was carefully controlled    
  • Site plan    
  • Ground floor plan    
  • First floor plan    
  • Section AA    

Light, simple, modern swimming pool at James Allen’s Girls School in East Dulwich, London

The building is formed by an arched, standing-seam roofed enclosure, with a low roof sweep carefully designed to avoid any roof penetrations.

Inside, the 25m six-lane competition pool hall is edged with glazed walls at one end and one side. At the opposite (shallow) end are changing rooms, and along the other side are 200 fixed seats. The pool surrounds are deep to accommodate the large number of students that can be involved in inter-school competitions.

Outside the pool hall, admin space is partly tucked under the seating, with a corridor connecting the entrance to the adjacent sports hall. Attached to the building is a rotunda containing plant, with future plans for a tennis pavilion on the roof.

The pool hall has been an exercise in designing with light. Not just the quality of the white hard-surface finishing materials, the glistening water and the walls of daylight, but also the choice of bands of stretched fabric as the ceiling.

Data

  • Begun: Feb 2000
  • Completed: 2001
  • Floor area: 1,494m2
  • Sectors: Education, Sports and leisure
  • Total cost: £4.1M
  • Tender date: Nov 1999
  • Procurement: JCT IFC 98 with Quantities
  • Address: 144 East Dulwich Grove, London, SE22 8TE, United Kingdom

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