EMERSON PARK POOLHOUSE 

ROMFORD, ESSEX
COMPLETED: 2010
PHOTOGRAPHY:  KILIAN O’SULLIVAN

Our client was in the process of building a ‘Huf’ house for his family on a large plot in Essex.  He asked us to provide a landscape design that would integrate the new house with the garden and which would include a swimming pool.  After an intensive process trying out different options on site and considering the way the family would actually use the garden it was decided to build an indoor pool with an entertainment area away from the house to catch the sun throughout the day.  As well as an 11 x 5m pool, the 220m2 building houses a gym, changing room and steam room.

The Poolhouse has a simple form with a roof that matches the pitch of the Huf house.  It is completely glazed on the garden side with exposed steel columns and big sliding doors that open the pool up to the garden.  A continuous low window at water level on the opposite side allows views out in all directions so that the green of the lush vegetation seems to flow right through the building.  The Poolhouse is a pavilion sitting close to the ground to minimise its presence, a stealth version of the white house that stands above it at the end of the garden.