Cardiff Bay’s Victorian dry docks set for £17m Nordic baths and sauna

Nordic Urban will submit a planning application to Cardiff Council in October for Allas Pool Cardiff – a £17m year-round outdoor bathing and sauna complex at the Mount Stuart Graving Docks in Cardiff Bay. 

A pre-application consultation (PAC) on the proposals opened this week. Feedback gathered during the PAC phase will be reviewed and considered as part of the final planning application. Construction is expected to take around two years once planning permission is granted.

The scheme will bring the Grade II listed dry docks, disused for decades, back into public use as a 2,000 sq m complex built around a 25-metre heated outdoor swimming pool. Alongside it will sit hot and cold pools, four saunas, changing and relaxation facilities, a restaurant and cafe, and outdoor terraces looking out over the water.

The terraces and the waterside walk around the dock will remain open to everyone without an admission charge, bringing a stretch of the Cardiff Bay dockside back into everyday public use.

The scheme brings together three award-winning specialist practices that have worked collaboratively through the concept stage. OOPEAA, the Finnish practice known for combining traditional wooden construction with contemporary architecture, led as concept architect. Its design keeps the dock walls, steps and structures intact, working within them rather than over them, and conserves the maritime heritage of a site that has been empty since commercial shipbuilding left the bay. GROSS.MAX, a UK-based landscape architecture practice, is landscape architect, while SPACE & PLACE, specialist sports and leisure architects, will lead the delivery phase.

Together, the three practices have shaped the concept, combining architectural, landscape and specialist leisure expertise.

Flexible indoor spaces will host wellbeing, cultural, and community activities throughout the year alongside the restaurant and cafe.

Cardiff is the first destination Nordic Urban intends to establish across the UK and Ireland, alongside further projects in development across the Nordic region and the Baltics.