‘Floating’ Swimming Pool Made Possible by Plastics Engineering

Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s . . . a swimming pool? Reynolds Polymer Technology has a well-earned reputation for creating epic acrylic constructions. It made quite a splash in 2019 with the Rain Vortex, the world’s tallest indoor waterfall at Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore. That same year, an underwater restaurant in Norway opened with a 26-foot panoramic window allowing diners to experience the life aquatic without getting wet, courtesy Reynolds Polymer. But the world’s first “floating swimming pool” that just debuted in London may be the company’s most stunning piece of work yet. The pool consists of a solid 14-in.-thick piece of acrylic that spans 82 feet across two buildings. It hovers 115 feet in the air, part of the Embassy Gardens complex. The totally transparent polymer was engineered and manufactured in Grand Junction, CO, where Reynolds Polymer is located. Describing the Sky Pool as “unexplainable without seeing it,” Paul O. Gardner, Vice President of Engineering, Quality, & Safety at Reynolds Polymer Technology, said that the project pushed the envelope of what can be done in large acrylic structures.