What Kind of Pool Do You Really Want?
When the clients at Wick Hill Lodge in Wokingham approached Simon Mack Architecture about adding a pool and pool house to their garden, the first and most important conversation was not about size, position or materials. It was about a more fundamental question: what kind of pool did they actually want?
For many people, the default answer is a conventional chlorinated swimming pool - familiar, predictable and, in truth, something of an imposition on the landscape. But as the brief developed through conversation, a different vision emerged. The clients wanted water that felt alive. A place to swim that was also a beautiful environment, one that would enrich their garden rather than dominate it, support wildlife rather than exclude it, and offer something genuinely different in every season.
The answer was a wild pool: chemical-free, ecologically rich and designed in harmony with nature from the outset.
A Wild Pool and a Pavilion Built for All Seasons
The natural swimming pool at Wick Hill Lodge operates entirely without chemicals. In place of chlorine, a carefully balanced system of aquatic planting and natural biological processes maintains the clarity and quality of the water, creating a living ecosystem that is gentler on the body and genuinely good for the local environment. Native plants filter the water, beneficial organisms maintain ecological balance, and the pool establishes its own natural equilibrium. The result is a swimming environment of extraordinary quality: soft, clear water set within a landscape of rich and evolving biodiversity.
The contemporary pool house was designed to complement this vision; a building that draws you to the poolside whatever the weather, without ever overwhelming the natural setting it serves. Timber cladding gives the structure a quiet, honest presence within the garden, whilst full-height glazing on the pool-facing elevation dissolves the boundary between inside and outside. A carefully calculated overhang shades the glazing during the hottest summer months, preventing overheating whilst maintaining the light, open character of the interior throughout the year. Large sliding glass doors allow the pool house to open entirely in fine weather, extending the living space onto the surrounding terrace.
The relationship between pool, pavilion and planting has been considered as a single composition. Ornamental and native grasses frame the water's edge, the pool house sits with quiet confidence at the garden's heart, and the surrounding tree canopy, at its magnificent best as the leaves emerge each spring, provides the setting that brings the whole design to life.
New photography to follow shortly, as the spring planting comes into its own.
A Garden Destination That Changes With Every Season
Wick Hill Lodge now has something that goes well beyond a conventional swimming facility. The pool house has become a genuine destination within the garden, a place to entertain in summer, to sit quietly on an autumn morning, to watch the mist rise from the water on a cold winter's day, and to witness the ecosystem reawaken as spring returns.
The natural pool itself offers an ever-changing experience. Each visit is different: fresh growth and returning wildlife in spring, the ecosystem in full bloom through summer, rich colour and texture in autumn, and the quieter, more structural beauty of winter. Swimming here is never monotonous, it is a connection to something living, evolving and genuinely beautiful.
This is what thoughtful architectural design makes possible: a space that enhances both the wellbeing of the people who use it and the ecological health of the landscape it sits within.