Visitors should park at 550 Lone Pine Road. From the parking lot, proceed up the driveway to the first door on the left, under the portico. Follow the corridor straight ahead. Turn right at the first corridor and enter the natatorium. Spectator seating is located at the top of the stairs on the left (or via the ramp to the right). Locker rooms are located beyond the stairs to the left.
Visitors during school hours should first check in with the Dean's office in Hoey Hall.
The Williams Natatorium is a superb recreational, competitive, and instructional indoor swimming pool, an outstanding 20,000 square-foot athletic facility as well as an architectural masterpiece. Designed by architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, a 1961 Cranbrook graduate, the Natatorium is situated on a hillside just east of Keppel Gymnasium, proudly anchoring the east/west axis that extends across campus from Cranbrook House. Built of materials and colors that recall the sky, pool water, trees, Kingswood's oxidized copper roofs, and earth, the building unites Cranbrook's architectural past and future, as well as the natural world and the building within.
The swimming pool itself is set in the very heart of the building beneath a striking cobalt ceiling dotted with starry twinkling lights of various sizes. Cantilevered viewing galleries and stands along one edge of the pool are large enough to seat two hundred on mahogany and gray slate benches. Natural light streams in through large picture windows along one side of the pool, and louvered wall panels and elliptical oculi in the ceiling open to let in fresh breezes and the occasional curious bird. Williams Natatorium merges with the natural world through all of these elements, and the results makes this a pool swimmers love.