-  -  -  -  Borden Park has served the Edmonton community for over a century. While the grounds have hosted a pool since 1924, the recent update gives Canada its first chemical-free public swimming facility. The basins use a combination of natural filters that include stone, gravel, and sand along with an ecosystem of plants and microorganisms to create living water. Comprised of a children’s pool, a deep pool, a sandy beach, and picnic areas, the recreation pavilion is contained by dark limestone gabions. These rocky barries also form a pool house that includes outdoor showers and changing rooms. While its low profile resembles the site’s existing mid-century buildings, it also allows for views of the tree canopies above, enhancing the experience of swimming in the middle of nature. “The Borden Park Natural Swimming Pool (NSP) is the first chemical–free public outdoor pool to be built in Canada. The NSP replaces an existing pool built in the 1950s with a seasonal pavilion and landscaped pool precinct for the activities of 400 swimmers. At the NSP, the challenge of water quality control, essential to any public bathing facility, is compounded by the scale and the technical demands required to achieve an environmentally healthy and natural filtration process. gh3\* married the technologies that cleanse water through stone, gravel, sand, and botanic filtering processes with a materials-oriented concept to achieve a rigorous technically and aesthetically integrated design. ” [VIA](https://www.gh3.ca/work/natural-swimming-pool-02)