I’ve been thinking a lot about public spaces – and using them too. As a freelancer in London, I write from coffee shops, wander through museums and recently explored both in my work: a Substack post on cafés as “third places” and a research project on museums as youth-friendly spaces.

That curiosity took me to the Design Museum’s Splash! exhibition for a talk titled “On Social Architecture: Swimming Spaces and the City”. The panel – featuring architectural historian Kathryn Ferry, architect Chris Romer-Lee and Swim Dem Crew’s Peigh Asante – dived into the history of Britain’s public baths and lidos. Born out of 19th-century sanitation efforts, swimming pools later became emblems of civic pride, fitness and fun, especially in the 1930s. 

They were also job creators during the Depression and stylishly designed in classicism. At their peak, the UK had 300 lidos – now, only about half are still making a splash. 

South Shore Open Air Baths in Blackpool, which opened in 1923

Lidos began to decline in the 1960s and ’70s as affordable foreign holidays drew people away from British seaside towns, where many lidos were located. In response, there was a shift toward indoor, temperature-controlled leisure centres like Rhyl Sun Centre. But these indoor pools eventually lost appeal too, especially after 1980s privatisation led to widespread closures. Safety concerns, including the tragic 1973 Summerland fire on the Isle of Man that killed 50 people, also contributed to their decline.

In recent decades, there’s been a revival of public swimming spaces across the UK. London Fields Lido reopened in 2006 after 20 years of community campaigning, and Brighton’s Sea Lanes launched in 2023. Panellist Romer-Lee highlighted his work with Future Lidos and Swimmable Cities, promoting outdoor and urban swimming to make it more accessible. In SEED CLUB, Alice Jasmine Crippa discussed efforts to restore Milan’s modernist lidos, including the costly renovation of Piscina Argelati (for some amazing pics, see here).

This renewed interest in swimming ties into broader trends around wellness, fitness and the search for “third places” – spaces beyond home and work that foster community and presence. Swimming, especially, demands that we disconnect from our phones, offering a kind of mindfulness that land-based activities sometimes don’t.