Has anyone ever looked at the housing market in London? To say it’s expensive is an understatement, but even the pokiest broom cupboard is nothing compared to the luxurious flats that are popping up all over the place. This latest development takes it one step further by adding a swimming pool bridge to the top of its two buildings.
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.
The ‘sky pool’ is being added to the Embassy Gardens development, which is part of the Nine Elms regeneration efforts in Battersea in south London. The transparent 25-metre pool will be 10 stories above the ground, and will connect the two blocks of flats together so people can swim around lording it over the people on the ground. The pool itself will be three metres deep (with a water depth of 1.2 metres), and the glass it’s made of will be eight centimetres thick.
It sounds pretty great to be honest, but the fact that the cheapest flats in the development are priced at £600,000 — about $1.3 million — means that there’s no way ordinary-salaried people will be able to afford to take a dip.
Sean Mulryan, chairman and CEO of the Ballymore Group — the project’s developers — had this to say:
“My vision for the sky pool stemmed from a desire to push the boundaries in the capability of construction and engineering. I wanted to do something that had never been done before. The experience of the pool will be truly unique, it will feel like floating through the air in central London.”
That’s all well and good, but the development is causing somewhat of a stir due to the fact that the flats are already being marketed at wealthy overseas buyers. London has plenty of luxury flats already, and what it really needs is good quality affordable housing. A pool in the sky is great and everything, but it’s pointless if nobody can afford to live there.