New indoor teaching facility will sit next to popular outdoor pool
Faulkner Browns has worked up proposals for a new teaching pool that will sit beside the heated Olympic-size outdoor pool at London Fields Lido in Hackney.
The practice’s scheme is set to be lodged for planning in the coming weeks after responses from a pre-application public consultation on the plans have been evaluated. The consultation launched on 3 March and closed yesterday.
The covered teaching pool, which would be 13m by 7m, is earmarked for the site of a disused paddling pool next to the lido. The project will also require part of the footprint of the London Fields park depot.
Faulkner Browns said there would be a “seamless connection” between the new training pool and the lido’s 50m heated outdoor pool.
The practice – which was the architect for Hackney’s new £42m Britannia Leisure Centre in Shoreditch – said its smaller-scale London Fields plans would be the same height as the current lido buildings and deliver family changing cubicles, gender-neutral cubicles and a viewing gallery.
“The new building respects the height of the original lido by matching the ridge height of the historic entrance in order to ensure the scheme feels as cohesive and unintrusive as possible,” Faulkner Browns said.
“The façade of the new building will respond to the walls of the original lido enclosure.”
Faulkner Browns added that the new building’s proposed elevations referenced the brick piers that run along the lido’s external walls, and that the new building would match the existing brick so the extension would “blend seamlessly” into its surroundings.
Faulkner Browns and client Hackney Council expect to lodge a planning application for the project in May and appoint a contractor in the winter, according to a timeline created for the just-closed consultation.
The timeline anticipated work would start on site by early 2024 for completion in the autumn.
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