Whanganui couple transform abandoned public pool into award-winning home

The design of the Gonville Pool House is built into the site of an abandoned pool with the home winning a national award in housing at the New Zealand Institute of Architects’ awards. Photo / Eva de Jong

Living in an abandoned public pool might seem like a strange project to take on, but a Whanganui couple have transformed a derelict site into their dream home and garden.

The Gonville Pool House won a national housing award at the 2024 New Zealand Institute of Architects’ awards in Auckland this month.

The pool was overgrown with weeds, had heavy graffiti, and severe leaks and hadn’t been used for 15 years when Frank Stark and Emma Bugden took on the place in 2021.

“It was basically ruined,” Stark said.

“When you looked at it you didn’t think, ‘oh turn on the taps and we can go swimming’. It looked like an abandoned and devastated sort of place.”

When the couple first purchased the Gonville site the pool hadn't been used for 15 years and was filled with weeds, heavily-graffitied and had severe leaks. Photo / Frank Stark

The vision for the house was built around the garden inside the drained pool.

By layering planting pots on its cracked surface, the pool is now bursting with Bugden’s citrus trees and native plants such as rewarewa and kōwhai.

Bugden said she was interested in reimagining the pool by adding to the site, but not eradicating its original history.

“Virtually every single person that comes here has learnt to swim in this pool, and they have really deep, fond memories,” Bugden said.

“I think that history was of interest to us, not specifically that it was a pool, but that it was a site that people feel really connected to.”

Bugden's love of gardening has seen her transform the empty pool into a beautiful garden with citrus trees, vegetables and native plants. Photo / Eva de Jong

In designing the home, the Patchwork Architecture team Ben Mitchell-Anyon and Sally Ogle used plywood, steel, and concrete to create a structure that blends seamlessly into the pool environment.

Bugden said being recognised at the NZIA awards was especially rewarding because their home was relatively modest on the scale of luxury new builds.

She said the work of the architects and builder Sam McCullum had brought their vision to life.

Its location makes it a sun-drenched, warm house that has also become a hotspot for birds and butterflies due to Bugden’s thriving garden.

There is also a learner’s pool that the couple will fill with cold water in the summer months.

The couple previously renovated a former Wellington rifle range into a home, and Stark said they enjoy “taking defunct old buildings and finding a new use for them”.

Frank Stark and Emma Bugden say visitors to their house often comment that they learnt to swim in the pool. Photo / Eva de Jong.

Local contractors were used for the build right down to the steel girders and kitchen joinery inside.

Wood from the changing room ceilings was used to build bleacher steps for sitting on within the pool, and even the rubble from the demolished changing rooms was used as a drainage layer.

“We tried to give everything a new life,” Bugden said.

In purchasing the pool site, they also bought the neighbouring Gonville Town Hall and fire station building, which continues to be used as the Glastonbury Dance Studio and for concerts, weddings and funerals.

Part of the site has been converted into offices for Stark’s work at the Gonville Centre for Urban Research, which is an evolving workspace for architects and designers.

A self-contained flat in the remains of the old changing rooms has also been converted into an Airbnb.

Local interest in the Gonville Pool and its memories hasn’t faded with time.

“There’s that ongoing sense of curiosity and ownership from passersby - that’s a constant theme,” Stark said.

Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023. You can contact her on eva.dejong@nzme.co.nz