PROJECT 165

"CITY OF LONDON FREEMEN'S SCHOOL SWIMMING POOL"

Hawkinsbrown

Mole Valley District Council has granted planning consent to Hawkins\Brown’s design for a new six-lane, 25-metre swimming pool at the City of London Freemen’s School in Ashtead, Surrey. The consent gives the green-light to the second phase of the masterplan developed for the school by Hawkins\Brown, which has already seen the completion of a new boarding house and music school.

The new pool makes use of innovative timber construction techniques and extensive offsite fabrication to create a building that sits gracefully within its setting of mature woodland. 

The pool building is constructed using a series of glue-laminated timber (glulam) portal frames structurally braced with cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels. The building will make use of extensive off-site manufacturing before being shipped to the site for assembly, minimising any potential disruption caused by construction. Hawkins\Brown has extensive experience in advanced timber construction techniques and has previously completed one of the tallest CLT buildings in Europe, The Cube, in East London.

The ridge line of the gently pitched roof runs diagonally across the rectangular plan of the building, working with the natural topography of the site to create a low-slung form that sits comfortably within the surrounding mature woodland. The high point of the roof acts to highlight the entrance and the diagonal ridgeline is expressed in the interior of the pool hall, creating a visually dynamic space punctuated by the rhythm of the glulam beams that traverse it at regular intervals. 

Hawkins\Brown website: www.hawkinsbrown.com