The arran­ge­ment of all the pools has been custom-tail­ored to suit the site’s unique loca­tion.

A harmo­nious arran­ge­ment of three roofs lends the buil­ding a sculp­tural flavor with an under­lying sense of invi­ta­tion, and its distinc­tive appearance offers a hearty welcome to visi­tors when seen from a distance. Inside, these dyna­mi­cally arranged roof surfaces mark out the various pool areas in a playful fashion without distur­bing the aquatic landscape’s open nature.

This emphasis on a nuanced treat­ment of the requi­site ceiling heights lends each of the zones its own sense of scale.

The arran­ge­ment of all the pools has been custom-tail­ored to suit the site’s unique loca­tion. In the center, we find a pool that invites swim­mers to “get in a few laps.” The adja­cent non-swimmer and toddler pools as well as the water play­ground face toward the southern facade. Here, we also find the food court and adjoi­ning terrace and a grassy area for sunbathing.

Next to the children’s area is the quiet zone with deck chairs, warm-water pool, steam bath, and infrared sauna. Located behind this area is a sepa­rate protected area for the diving faci­li­ties with 1‑, 3‑, and 5‑meter diving plat­forms. Other attrac­tions include the two waterslides—100 and 123 meters in length—on the nort­hern side of the buil­ding.

Next to, and acou­sti­cally sepa­rated from, the slides, we find the lear­ning pool in which lessons are held and the adja­cent 25-meter pool for the swim­ming clubs.

Guests find it easy to navi­gate this single-story swim­ming area located at ground level. Light­weight glass divi­ding walls delineate the quiet area, screen the slides’ landing area, and offer a high level of privacy for the lear­ning pool and the second 25-meter swim­mers’ pool.

The Indoor pool faci­lity is notable not only for its sculp­tural roof design but also for the gene­rous glass facades, which enclose the struc­ture like a light­weight, trans­pa­rent curtain. The facades thus provide an unim­peded view of the surroun­ding gree­nery and impres­sive stock of trees.

The archi­tects’ goal was to come up with the most sustainable design possible for the buil­ding and power supply.

The deli­be­rate use of natural materials—in the connec­ting wooden roof with its deli­cate, untreated squared spruce timbers or the near-natural beige of the floor of the baths, for example—creates a connec­tion to the land­scape of the adja­cent Schwa­katen and Mainau forests.

Color accents are provided, for example, by the red heated benches, which arti­cu­late the space and the shiny blue mosaic tiles. The varying roof heights create bands of light that gene­rate a parti­cular atmo­spheric effect as the sun angles in.

The archi­tects’ goal was to come up with the most sustainable design possible for the buil­ding and power supply. Almost the entire roof land­scape is thus covered in photo­vol­taic modules supplied by the Stadt­werke Konstanz company. Most of the building’s heating is derived from combined heat and power modules and from waste heat produced by the pools and waste­water from the showers. This allows the indoor swim­ming pool to save around 171 tons in CO2 emis­sions each year.

The open character and sophisti­cated, well-nigh inex­haus­tible diver­sity of the new Schwa­ke­tenbad make it a parti­cu­larly impres­sive venue in which all types of user groups are encou­raged to interact with one another. The striking spatial atmo­sphere is a key part of provi­ding bathers with a memo­rable expe­ri­ence.

Commu­nity sports halls have a noble social func­tion. So does the Zlatar Bistrica sports hall by NOP Studio.

Commu­nity sports halls are a some­what margi­na­lised buil­ding type, even though they provide programmes central to local commu­ni­ties and have a specific, rather noble social func­tion. They belong to buil­dings with largest inte­riors fit for public gathe­rings such as fairs, concerts, and, of course, sporting events.

So does the Zlatar Bistrica sports hall by NOP Studio.

Zlatar Bistrica is a small town located in one of the few plains of other­wise hilly Hrvatsko Zagorje in northwest Croatia, a town with but a few distinct urban features, such as the school, church, and commu­nity health centre scat­tered along the two main roads, Vladimir Nazor and Zagorska.

Sports halls host important social expe­ri­ences. Not only for the athletes, but also for ever­yone else.

Commu­nity sports halls often make part of school buil­ding complexes and become func­tional and symbolic centres of small commu­ni­ties with limited public archi­tec­ture.

Desig­ning a sports hall is ther­e­fore an important urban chall­enge, as it has to resolve the basic contrast between a simple hall and an important public buil­ding.

This contrast is a common pitfall for inves­tors and desi­gners alike. While the func­tional requi­re­ments for a sports hall can be met with a basic, even prosaic design, such design may miss the oppor­tu­nity for a large invest­ment such as this to also make a cultural contri­bu­tion.

Besides the urban and symbolic func­tion, sports halls also accom­mo­date important social processes, not only for the youth, for whom they are prima­rily intended, but also for ever­yone else. Parents who bring their children and watch them train, for example, often end up meeting and hanging out there.

The hall has been placed on a lot sloping toward the west and confi­gured to respond to the given urban and topo­gra­phic deter­mi­nants.

The sports hall project for Zlatar Bistrica had to face all these chal­lenges. With­drawn further away from the main roads, the school and the church do not define the street view leaving it mainly rural. The school complex is in symbiosis with its rural envi­ron­ment; its neat, rela­tively neutral modern archi­tec­ture defines the access square on two sides, while the remai­ning two sides border with a typical rural property with outbuil­dings. This arran­ge­ment fits nicely with the school yard, which is used to grow plants and teach children about nature and agri­cul­ture.

The western peri­meter of the school square used to border with a sports hall that had been destroyed by fire, and the new hall project inhe­rited its former orien­ta­tion as an important para­meter to be inte­grated with the buil­ding’s new external and internal confi­gu­ra­tion.

The hall has been placed on a lot sloping toward the west and confi­gured to respond to the given urban and topo­gra­phic deter­mi­nants.

The Zlatar Bistrica sports hall show­cases an ambi­tious design that imparts the sense of contem­po­rary archi­tec­tural culture to a small town.

The inte­rior reflects this sloping exte­rior pede­strian confi­gu­ra­tion. The façade that opens to the school square with glazed ground level and entrance allows the public square space to enter the inte­rior and then cascade down the grand­stand stair­case to the lower sporting level, which is why the square has a clear view of what happens in the hall and vice versa.

The square and the hall inte­rior comple­ment each other and exch­ange views in an almost seam­less and direct shift between what goes on in the hall and outside. The outer layer of the hall is made of trans­lu­cent poly­car­bo­nate, which at night turns the entire volume of the buil­ding into a lantern illu­mi­na­ting the school square and the surroun­ding area.