The scheme designed by award-winning architects HawkinsBrown provides a 25m, six-lane competition swimming pool, with changing facilities and a multi-purpose teaching and events space.

The new pool uses state-0f-the-art timber construction and offsite fabrication methods to create a sustainable building that sits gently within its context. It replaces the school?s original pool building, which a fire destroyed in 2014. It also relocates it from the west to the east side of the campus, next to the existing sports facilities.
Photography: Jack Hobhouse
The construction of the pool, led by UK construction and fit out contractor Gilbert-Ash, includes glue-laminated timber (glulam) portal frame, braced with cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels. The use of engineered timber provides a fast, efficient, carbon-neutral method of construction that provides both structure and internal finish
The all-timber construction also has a number of advantages in dealing with the challenges of a pool environment ? it is resilient, a thermal insulator and corrosion resistant. On-site, the erection of the glulam portal frame and cross-laminated timber walls and roof took just over three weeks. This allowed the detailed design and full construction of the building to be delivered in one year.

The natural internal surface of the structural timber roof and walls are left exposed and stained white. This material acts as a complementary feature to the external setting and helps to create a special e...