Guest Column: Glen Ames school pool bursts with colour and energy thanks to its human-centred design

By MADISON MUNRO

Tucked away in Toronto’s Beach neighbourhood, the swimming pool in Glen Ames Senior Public School stands as a rare surviving example of mid-century expressionist architecture.

Designed in the early 1960s by Peter Pennington, a British-born architect known for his playful approach to educational spaces, the building challenges traditional expectations of public-school infrastructure.

The pool interior bursts with colour and energy: stained glass in red, yellow, and blue, De Stijl-like grids cast shifting coloured light across glazed tiles. A mosaic mural animates the back wall, and sculptural concrete columns punctuate the structure inside and out.

The angled walls, designed for acoustic control, not only shape the circulation and rhythm of the space, they contribute to its dramatic and unconventional form. Though the pool serves a highly functional role – hosting school swim classes by day and community programming by night and on weekends – it resists the grim utilitarian aesthetic typical of institutional pools. Instead, the Glen Ames pool engages users emotionally and sensorially through vibrant form and immersive atmosphere.

Mid-century expressionist architecture subverts typological conventions by transforming functional programs into symbolic, emotional forms – demonstrating that typology evolves not through repetition, but through rupture. 

Formally, the Glen Ames pool departs from the standardized typology of institutional swimming facilities through its expressive geometry and vibrant visual language.

Unlike the orthogonal, stripped-down aesthetic typical of school infrastructure, the pool’s design introduces angled walls that splay outward, sculpting both light and movement within the space. These angular planes not only address acoustic performance but shape a rhythm of compression and expansion in circulation.

The stained glass windows – organized in a grid of red, yellow, white, and blue – draw from De Stijl aesthetics, yet their floor-to-ceiling scale transforms them into monumental, symbolic elements. Overhead, the vivid blue ceiling mirrors the water’s surface, creating a sense of enclosure that is both immersive and theatrical. Together, these formal elements establish the pool not as a neutral container for function, but as an emotionally charged environment. It reimagines the pool typology as a place of sensory experience and spatial wonder.

Functionally, the Glen Ames pool fulfills a dual-purpose typology: serving both as a space for middle school aquatic education and as a public facility for the adjacent Beaches Recreation Centre. Its design accommodates this layered functionality through independent access points and adaptable spatial planning, allowing for seamless transitions between institutional and community use.

The 36-foot by 75-foot flush-deck pool is sized for both instructional and recreational swimming, while thoughtful acoustic treatments – angled splayed absorbent rear surfaces – enhance audibility and comfort during classes and events.

Despite its expressive form, the pool’s layout remains highly functional: clear sightlines for supervision, efficient circulation from change rooms, and durable, easy-to-clean materials reflect its public-service role. Yet the architecture goes beyond efficiency; it elevates the act of swimming into a multisensory experience. The design demonstrates that function does not preclude atmosphere, and that utility can coexist with poetic spatial expression.

At Glen Ames Senior Public School, form and function engage in a dynamic interplay rather than a direct clash. The pool’s angled walls, sculptural columns, and stained glass windows fulfill acoustic, structural, and lighting functions, yet they do so through an expressive formal language that transforms utilitarian needs into symbolic gestures.

This synergy exemplifies Giulio Carlo Argan’s idea that architectural typology evolves through the integration of form and use, not their separation.  As Argan writes, “the type is not a definite form but rather a structure, a morphological scheme which is capable of generating a form.”

The pool does precisely this: it reinterprets the conventional pool typology by embedding functional demands within a whimsical, emotionally resonant structure. Far from abandoning typology, the building enriches it – demonstrating how even practical programs like school pools can be reimagined through expressive architecture that stimulates both body and mind. It is an evolution through reinterpretation, not rejection. 

The Glen Ames pool exemplifies how architecture can transcend mere function to create spaces of emotional and sensory resonance. By embedding functional demands within expressive form, the building redefines typology not as rigid repetition, but as a generative structure open to reinterpretation.

This approach affirms Argan’s view that architecture evolves through the interplay of form and use. More broadly, it suggests that even the most utilitarian public spaces – schools, pools, community centres – can be opportunities for aesthetic and cultural enrichment.

In a time when public architecture often trends toward the generic, Glen Ames offers a compelling model for joyful, human-centered design.

• Madison Munro is studying architecture and urban studies at the University of Toronto.