Nine Elms: Sky Pool is the trophy attraction to the area near London's US Embassy and Apple HQ

Outgoing president Donald Trump described Nine Elms as 'lousy' but the striking pool is just one thing breathing new life into the area
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Anna White20 January 2021

The aquarium-style swimming pool installed floating ten storeys above ground in Vauxhall is just one indication that the huge area of industrial land beside the Thames is on the up.

We have yet to hear Joe Biden's assessment of Nine Elms — we expect it with bated breath some time after today's inauguration — but we know full well that his predecessor Donald Trump was not a fan.

In fact, he dubbed it "lousy". But, never a bastion of taste, this is not an opinion shared by a raft of big hitters, not least Apple, who are opening a new London campus at Battersea Power Station later this year.

This high-level interest has also coincided with house price rises, up 13 per cent in a year, following 10 years of regeneration costing £15 billion.

The vast regeneration zone is home to thousands of new flats, including in luxury development Embassy Gardens, where the open-air swimming pool will be suspended.

Designed to float between the rooftops of two luxury skyscrapers, a transparent acrylic structure was the final piece of the highly-anticipated Sky Pool.

The 25m transparent outdoor pool was lifted in place in September last year by one of the largest mobile cranes in the world. The pool was manufactured in Colorado and driven 1,000 miles to Galveston, Texas, before being shipped across the Atlantic over the last month.

The Sky Pool, which was designed by HAL Architects, will be filled with 148,000 litres of water and is expected to open this spring. A parallel footbridge will sit alongside it and the rooftop of westerly tower will house a lounge, oyster bar and an orangery.

Embassy Gardens is the new 2,000-home development in the Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station regeneration zone. It is adjacent to the US Embassy and One Embassy Gardens — a commercial district which will be home to the giant publishing house Penguin.

Donald Trump's criticism of the area came in April 2018, ahead of his visit to the UK in July that year, slamming the move of the US Embassy from Grosvenor Square in central London to Nine Elms in south-west London.

The comments came after he cancelled a planned, earlier trip to London to open the embassy.

There was speculation his decision was because of fear of protests against him in the capital, but he later reiterated that it was because of his opposition to the embassy move from Mayfair.