harbor bath

Pattern Scale: Neighborhood

Description of the Pattern:

Harbor and port cities around the world are rediscovering their nearby waters as places to swim and wade. Copenhagen has emerged as a leader in designing spaces around its harbor for swimming and sunbathing, known as Harbor Baths. Efforts to control sewage and other harbor pollutants have resulted in dramatic improvements for harbor water quality making this biophilic interaction with urban waters possible. Harbor Baths, and the promise of urban swimming, are at once a function of improved quality and, in turn, a powerful driver of further calls water quality improvements.

Architects Bjarke Ingels (BIG architects) and Julien de Smedt (JDS Architects) designed one of the city’s first swimming facilities called the Islands Brygge Harbour Bath. The design entails an enclosed structure of wood, with spaces to lounge and sunbath, along with high platforms for diving into the water.  According to ArchDaily the facility “offers an urban harbour landscape with dry-docks, piers, boat ramps, cliffs, playgrounds and pontoons. As a terraced landscape, the Harbour Bath completes the transition from land to water, making it possible for the citizens of Copenhagen to go for a swim in the middle of the city.”

Support for creating public swimming areas in harbor and urban waterfront locations has gained ground in many other cities as well, including New York, Paris, Berlin and London. Proposals have also been made for pop-up swimming areas in Sydney Harbor. 

More Reading:

Copenhagen's harbour baths and beaches. VisitCopenhagen.

Who Submitted this Pattern:  Tim Beatley, Biophilic Cities