Vancouver’s skyline is no stranger to tall, striking buildings.

There’s the soon-to-be-completed Vancouver House, for instance, with its bases peaking from the Granville Bridge and tower twisting up almost precariously.

The Living Shangri-la, the city’s tallest building, juts into the sky from its location on West Georgia Street.

Vancouver’s number of such tall, shiny facades has led some to call it the “City of Glass”.

But a glance up at the Arc, a new condo structure along the False Creek Seawall, promises a different view: residents swimming laps in a pool suspended some 19 floors—60 metres—above ground.

A clear 15-centimetre-thick pane of acrylic spans the pool, allowing bathers a dizzying view of the plaza below.

“We really wanted to make a statement,” Concord Pacific senior vice president Peter Webb said in a news release.

Installing the acrylic proved an ordeal. Only one company in North America makes the material for pool bottoms: Reynolds Polymer, based out of Colorado.

“The precarious and challenging pool installation only made our job more interesting,” Reynolds Polymer's Mark Johnson said. “We had to store the solid acrylic panel among the construction while the building was being completed, and lower the panel into place once construction was finished.”

According to the release, the building’s 560 condo units are nearly sold out.