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Just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t make it any less crazy, I think as another swimmer recovers from a somersault with an exuberant shriek. After a string of warm, sunny days, today’s drizzly chill is enough of a shock. So jumping into King’s Cross Pond for a morning paddle seemed like a sardonic piece of performance art.

Et voilà. King’s Cross Pond is London’s latest art installation, a 230-square-metre freshwater swimming hole nestled within a 27-hectare construction site north of the rail hub. It’s a dystopian landscape of cranes and cement mixers, where offices for Google, BNP Paribas and the Aga Khan Development Network rise higher by the day. But that’s where the supposed charm lies. This so-called “living landscape” is part of the developer Argent’s commitment to delivering public-art along with the tumult of construction – “a crossroad of different elements that is constantly evolving,” says Argent’s aptly named spokesman, Ian Freshwater.

An early morning swimmer leaves his prosthetic leg on the jetty as he dives into the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park on a misty morning in London, England. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images

The project’s architects, the Dutch practice Ooze, envisioned a microecosystem where the natural cycles mirrored the urban change surrounding it (officially, the installation is called Of Soil and Water: King’s Cross Pond Club). They sourced 80 wild “pioneer” plants for the grounds. Lily pads dance on the water’s surface for regeneration and underwater weeds filter out bacteria. That’s bacteria from the swimmers. The pleasure of swimming may be the thing they push most here – “Stripping off your layers and going for a swim is the most free way of experiencing the place,” says Ooze co-founder Eva Pfannes – but the bacteria we leave behind is necessary for the food chain to thrive. From what I can see, Londoners are happy to oblige.

A man swims at the King's Cross Pond Club in London, Britain May 19, 2015. The King's Cross Pond Club is Britain's first ever man-made freshwater public bathing pond REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett - RTX1E4KJ

London – more of it than you might have assumed, anyway – loves wild swimming. I put it down to most not being Londoners at all but rather from Devon, Scotland or Wales, some place infinitely hardier and less landlocked. But also it’s because swimming in open water so defies the cracked concrete and soaring steel towering over the city. It seems crazy because it’s so incongruous, but it’s the most natural thing in a most unnatural place.

The Thames, London’s largest open body of water and its largest public space over all, was off limits for decades as the oversubscribed sewers leaked out tonnes of effluent. But recently the utility Thames Water announced plans to build a “super sewer” to remove 96 per cent of the sewage currently flowing into the river. To reclaim parts of the river for swimming, it enlisted local architects Studio Octopi and Jonathan Cook Landscape Architects to design what it calls the Thames Baths.

By 2023, there will be two new baths, in central Blackfriars and in Shadwell in the east end, connected to the mainland with contemporary timber catwalks edged by native grasses and antique stone. They’ll replenish themselves with fresh water at high tide, while native plants will spring up to form natural environments around them. If the enthusiasm around King’s Cross Pond is anything to go by, I can foresee spotting a lot of bobbing bathing caps from Blackfriars Bridge on my morning commute.

People walk past a pond on Hampstead Heath in North London on February 17, 2013, after the British captal awoke to unseasonably warm weather. AFP PHOTO / JUSTIN TALLIS (Photo credit should read JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)

Wild swimming is something that’s happened for years on the margins of London, but is only just now drifting to the centre – literally and in the popular imagination. Enveloped by ancient trees and unmanicured brush, the Hampstead Ponds in North London occupy wilderness as desirable as a provincial park in Central Canada. As such, or even despite it, they attract a decidedly crunchier type (the men’s-only pond has also been a popular gay meeting place for eons).

It’s about time people woke up to the slice of cottage country atop the city (the mixed bathing pond lies beside Parliament Hill, London’s highest point). The past few summers have been uncharacteristically steamy, and outdoor pools are in short supply in town. You could count the number of clean “lidos,” mostly consigned to fringe neighbourhoods, on two hands. The few hotels that operate swimming pools hide them indoors, and passes for anyone not staying overnight are unheard of. It’s slightly mad for such a massive and relatively temperate city. Come summer, when the mercury climbs, most residents are resigned to sprinklers and turtle pools. At times like this, the Hampstead Pond is the only place in North London worth visiting, and the refurbished Overground Tube line has made it so easy to reach.

Ditto the picturesque Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, the most central freshwater swim in town. It has its own swimming club, and only members can swim until 9:30 a.m. But between 10 and 6 p.m., the lake is open to the public and you may occasionally see someone taking advantage of it – but only occasionally, as the water temperature barely hits 20 C on the hottest day of the year. Sometimes I think Londoners would rather let it sit there, barely used, while grumbling about being stifled than strip off and jump in.

Of Soil and Water: King’s Cross Pond Club

The King’s Cross Pond Club, though it’s technically classified as art and scheduled for a finite three-year run, just may help change attitudes toward blissed-out open-water swimming in this stressed-out metropolis. The design college Central Saint Martins occupies a former granary just downwind. Around it are fountains, public sculptures, stylish restaurants and the revived Regent’s Canal, which unfurls toward Camden Market. The Guardian newspaper recently moved into buildings to the west. These populations, and the families in the genteel Islington neighbourhood adjacent, will be the first to splash among the reeds. More will surely come from farther afield.

On this drizzly day, however, I dip a toe and decide I’m not quite there yet. Of course, by the time you read this, I’m fairly confident I’ll have taken the plunge.

Special to The Globe and Mail

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