Earlier today I was posting a project to World-Architects ? L'Accostée House by Bourgeois / Lechasseur architectes ? and was particularly taken with one aspect of it: the lap pool. Located on the first floor of the three-story split-level, the pool is tucked into the hillside, away from exterior windows. But it's far from a dark space.

[Photo: Adrien Williams, courtesy of v2com]

The narrow windows on the left, in the photo above, borrow light from an adjacent living space, but it's the white space beyond the wood ceiling that is most intriguing. There, as the photo below reveals, is a tall space, where the compressed feeling of the pool opens up dramatically.
[Photo: Adrien Williams, courtesy of v2com]

To understand how this triple-height space works, look at the plans below, where I added blue. The pool is a simple rectangular volume, but where it extends up three floors it grabs light from outside through narrow windows at the end, while also providing a view into/from the hallway on the second floor.

[Floor plans | Drawing: Bourgeois / Lechasseur architectes; blue added by me]

Sure, this pool cost more than if it were kept low across its whole length, but the added expense appears to be well worth it.

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