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Architects: Klas Hyllén Architecture
- Area: 201 m²
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Hide Film for Klas Hyllén Architecture
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Manufacturers: PetersenTegl
Text description provided by the architects. Malvern Pool House by Klas Hyllén Architecture is a visually stunning companion to an Arts & Crafts inspired home, perched on a hilltop in rural Warwickshire, housing a swimming pool and a sequence of relaxation rooms. The new addition comprises two interconnecting volumes of clay brick, minimal in appearance, yet materially rich and exquisitely detailed. Sweeping views across the Malvern Hills are balanced with a vast, light-filled volume with a cathedral-like diagrid ceiling that appears to float above the swimming pool.
A nine-meter-long skylight floods the space with more daylight, or on a clear night is spliced with starlight. A natural mineral scent, a result of the water's interplay with the clay brick, fills the air. The ancillary building houses necessary showers and dressing rooms, and connects to the main house, while protecting a courtyard to the north. Malvern Pool House invites relaxation and rejuvenation. It is a sensory oasis of light and water, an exquisite retreat from the world while retaining a dialogue with the land, and its deer, geese, and hares that inhabit the surrounding fields.
The primary oblong (63m2) is all about the elements and is angled specifically to best connect with the landscape. It houses the 1.4m deep pool whose water extends to the perimeter walls and a vast south-facing window, to seamlessly flow into the view. The white-washed diagrid glue-laminated ceiling adds an effortless, calming, monastic quality. The secondary volume (38m2) strengthens and shelters a rectilinear farm courtyard to the north, a space now defined thanks to the careful design of the new buildings. It is a simple mono-pitch volume, housing ancillary functions such as showers, changing rooms, and a small separate meditation area, connected to the main house through a new timber fin glazed link. The space defined between the two volumes (32m2) is the relaxation area, which binds the spaces together. Below the ancillary volume and the relaxation area is a basement plant room and the overflow tank, as well as a wine cellar (68m2). Through the glazed link, back in the main house, an old snooker room has been re-purposed into a new games room and gym (58m2).
Structurally it is deceptively simple; the complex technical elements are well hidden. What isn't visible in Malvern Pool House are any of the services, so often the downside of the swimming pool. Instead, these have been cleverly cast into accessible (and maintainable) voids under the water, while an ingenious ventilation system is incorporated into the steel ring beam supporting the roof. Its energy efficiency is also striking: an indoor pool is energy greedy and humid in its very nature. Klas Hyllén's solution is a super-insulated airtight structure (350mm of insulation to the roof, 300mm of insulation to the walls, and 200mm to the ground) dramatically reducing heat loss and energy demand. The combination of masonry and timber – coated to provide further resistance – is robust and will withstand the humidity for decades to come.
Klas Hyllén says: "The space is a sensory experience. We think it is visually stunning, but the experience comes to life in person - it's about all the senses, acoustics, temperature, tactility, and the smell of water on brick which gives off this very pleasant mineral, almost monastic scent. The air handling unit is the beating heart of this, ensuring a constant temperature at about 29 degrees and humidity at about 55%. We love the interplay with the natural surroundings and the joy of being part of the landscape. And it backstrokes only here as you stargaze into the cosmos for a spot of night swimming".
