The POOL project.

I never used the old Riverside Leisure centre in Stafford that much but the few times I did I thought it was fine and the pool facilities with the diving pool and learning pool as well as the 25m pool were great. Whilst the new facilities are very nice, modern and clean I can’t see any real gain from having the new centre. I wonder whether the money would have been better spent tricking up the old one. Whatever though, because the council built a new one, pulled down the old one to unlock the potential in the valuable land only for the site to become a surface carpark, effectively replacing the old multi-storey that has closed down right next to it. I’m not being sentimental about the old one, it has certainly made quite a nice vista from the footbridge over the River Sow down to the town centre where before all you could see was fat middle aged women wearing leotards right up their cracks doing yoga in a class box gym...one of the most horrifying sites in Stafford...until you go into the Litten Tree that is (Guinness only £2.09 though, you can’t argue with that)

Buildings shouldn’t be preserved past their useful lifetime just for preservation sake. But buildings that are still fine don’t need to be replaced unless its being replaced by something far better and buildings that have exceeded their useful life for one activity aren’t instantly unsuitable for a different activity, they can be adapted. A feature in last weeks news caught my eye.

It was of an old 70’s swimming pool in Dagenham condemned for demolition to become a carpark for the new leisure centre that the council has just built. Remarkable parallel, no? The council offered up the site for one month to Nike to convert it into a BMX nirvana. In the four weeks it was open 4000 came from all over the world to ride at THE POOL, including the worlds best who turned up for a showcase event on the opening night. The POOL project wasn’t just ramps and grind rails, it included facilities to teach people how to maintain their bikes and bikes were even loaned to new comers to the sport with experts on hand to give some guidance and tuition. The local youth and hoodlums during half term turned up in their hoards, around 300 a day. Despite this fine example of how the building could be re-used, given a new lease of life and attract a whole new group of people to the Leisure Centre the council decided to go ahead and demolish the POOL which will inevitable give it a mythical status, old men will tell their grandkids they rode a BMX bike at the Dagenham Pool to which the grandkid will reply, “what’s a bike granddad” while floating through the air on a hoverboard. Whatever man, no need for sentimentality, as architects and designers we should look for the month long opportunity to do something cool that people can really appreciate rather than building a temple. Dross...make use of the waste, not live under the pretence of design without waste.

JUST DO IT!