Ravensdale Baths

Ravensdale Baths

By: Rowan Thackray
In: Commissions Civic/Infrastructure
2 min read
A new public pool for Pentland Civic Trust, photographed on an ordinary Tuesday with the lane swimmers in it, because an empty pool tells you nothing.
ClientPentland Civic Trust
ArchitectOrdish & Fen
Other collaboratorsStruan Engineering, Wemyss Housing Association (funding partner)
Completed2025
PhotographedJune 2025
A low timber and glass civic pavilion with a generous entrance and people arriving
From the street, half past nine. The doors had been open twenty minutes.
A timber-lined entrance foyer with daylight from a rooflight, a reception desk and low seating
The foyer. Rooflight the full length, and no artificial light on until October.
An empty pool photographs as a hole in the ground. The trust asked for it empty and I asked for one hour on a normal Tuesday, and the Tuesday frames are the ones they have used ever since.
A shallow sunlit learner pool with a swimming lesson in progress at distance
The learner pool, mid-lesson. Consent arranged a fortnight in advance.
A clean bright changing village with timber cubicle doors and terrazzo, empty
The changing village, before opening. The one room photographed empty on purpose.

Every person in these frames is at a distance and in motion by design. That was agreed with the trust before the shoot and it took a fortnight of notices at the door rather than a lens choice — which is the part of photographing a public building that nobody budgets for and that decides whether you get the pictures at all.

The junction where timber roof beams land on a concrete upstand with daylight raking across
Beam to upstand. The whole roof arrives on this line, eleven times.
The building at dusk from outside with the interior warmly lit and the pool glowing through the glazing
Closing time. The one dusk frame in the set, and it is about people leaving.