Last year, The Royal Academy of Arts ran a design workshop with the Architecture Foundation and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners aiming to spark new ideas to improve London’s relationship to the Thames. They had some fascinating responses: from ‘River Rooms’ to real-time crowd-sourced digital layers. One of the most seductive was a proposal for 'Thames Baths' at Blackfriars by a team that included architects Studio Octopi with Civic Engineers and Jonathan Cook Landscape. Taking advantage of the new ‘Super Sewer', which will make the Thames clean enough to swim, the project aims to let Londoners 'liberate themselves from the intensity of the city by swimming in the Thames… in as natural an environment as possible’. The project is gaining some momentum and more information is available here: thamesbaths.com or follow the project on Facebook.
From METALOCUS, from MADRID, we propose an alternative to Londoners; swimming pools on rooftops London, as in Madrid, a city with no beach also.
Studio Octopi writes.-
"Swimming has always featured in the River Thames. The ability to do so has become harder and harder as river traffic has increased and London’s population has outgrown the ageing sewage system. However plans are in place to upgrade Sir Joseph Bazelgette’s sewers and therefore dramatically improve the quality of the river’s water. The Thames Baths Project is about imagining the possibilities of safely swimming in the river and opening up a discussion about the future."
