Lilianfels Resort & Spa - Katoomba

At the time of our engagement, this iconic heritage-listed resort hotel in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney was owned by the Orient Hotel Group and was being progressively renovated under the guidance of Altona Architects Group. Our brief was to design and project manage the construction of a large outdoor pool, including the surrounding paved areas and adjacent garden areas. Our scope of work also included selecting the perfect location for the pool, as well as taking into account all of the complex heritage and Council-related issues that had to be addressed for DA purposes. This resort pool, which happens to be one of the highest swimming pools in Australia, also required a commercial level of filtration and sanitation to be designed and incorporated, which is substantially more complex than the requirements for a domestic pool. Accordingly, a special ‘plant room’ had to be constructed to house all of the filtration, sanitation, heating and other essential equipment. Our design included the incorporation of both a flush ‘wet deck’ along three sides of the pool, as well as a weir/cascade and balance tank along the far edge, to ensure both minimal disruption to the surface of the pool while in use, as well as maximum removal of leaves, twigs and dust from the surface of the pool. The pool has proven very popular and is featured strongly in the Hotel’s brochure and other marketing literature.