Main Bad Born­heim in Frank­furt

Not every plan­ning chall­enge is a disad­van­tage. Some­times, it is precisely these chal­lenges that give rise to the most compel­ling solu­tions. At the new Main Bad Born­heim, the buil­ding site—which contained rubble and conta­mi­nated soil—forced the plan­ning team to forgo a tradi­tional base­ment. Instead of a base­ment that would have been costly to cons­truct, the mecha­nical and utility spaces were housed enti­rely on the ground floor, while the pool area was moved up to the first floor.

This unusual layout offered several advan­tages. Not only did it signi­fi­cantly reduce cons­truc­tion costs and resource consump­tion, but it also opened up new perspec­tives for visi­tors. Gene­rous glazing brings natural light deep into the buil­ding and offers unob­s­tructed views of the green spaces on the Born­heim hillside. What began as a tech­nical neces­sity thus became a defi­ning archi­tec­tural feature of the entire project.

With appro­xi­m­ately 900 m² of water surface area, the Main Bad Born­heim caters equally to fami­lies, recrea­tional swim­mers, schools, clubs, and serious athletes. The recrea­tional pool complex combines an adven­ture pool, a children’s area, a spray park, and two slides into a diverse aquatic land­scape, while the sports hall takes a back seat.

The 25-meter pool, featuring six lanes, a diving plat­form, and a movable floor, provides flexible trai­ning and compe­ti­tion condi­tions. The faci­li­ties are comple­mented by a sepa­rate teaching pool. A spacious glass wall visually sepa­rates the recrea­tional and sports areas while provi­ding the neces­sary acou­stic sepa­ra­tion.

The sauna area, also located on the upper floor and featuring indoor and outdoor saunas, a steam room, a land­scaped atrium, and spacious rela­xa­tion areas, comple­ments the faci­lity with a distinct rela­xa­tion area that blends harmo­niously into the overall design.

The quality of the Main Bad Born­heim is not based on a single idea, but rather on the inter­play of many decis­ions. The compact, three-story design alone reduces the buil­ding enve­lope and thus mini­mizes heat loss over the long term. Skylights bring natural light deep into the buil­ding, while durable, low-main­ten­ance mate­rials mini­mize main­ten­ance and clea­ning costs throug­hout the building’s entire life cycle.

Solu­tions like these do not emerge in isola­tion at the drawing board. They develop through close colla­bo­ra­tion between archi­tects, specia­list desi­gners, and the contrac­tors, who contri­bute their exper­tise in cons­truc­tion, mate­rial selec­tion, and imple­men­ta­tion. Parti­cu­larly in the case of a tech­ni­cally chal­len­ging struc­ture such as an indoor swim­ming pool, this colla­bo­ra­tive part­ner­ship deter­mines whether design quality, energy effi­ci­ency, and cost-effec­ti­ve­ness are ulti­m­ately achieved.

The Main Bad Born­heim is thus also the result of precise and colla­bo­ra­tive execution—from the initial plan­ning stages through to the craft­sman­ship on the cons­truc­tion site.

The building’s tech­nical systems are also consis­t­ently desi­gned to support the goal of resource-effi­cient opera­tion. A photo­vol­taic system with 450 modules gene­rates up to 150,000 kilo­watt-hours of elec­tri­city annu­ally. It is supple­mented by a combined heat and power plant as well as exten­sive heat reco­very from venti­la­tion and bathwater systems. In addi­tion, the tech­nical infra­struc­ture has already been put in place to utilize waste heat from the neigh­boring ice rink in the future.

Rain­water is used for clea­ning and wate­ring the outdoor areas, while a rain­water reten­tion system reli­eves pres­sure on the sewer system during heavy rain­fall. Energy-effi­cient LED lighting and durable mate­rials round out the sustaina­bi­lity concept. This issue played an important role even during the cons­truc­tion phase: The cons­truc­tion site was orga­nized in a resource-effi­cient manner and certi­fied by the DGNB as a sustainable cons­truc­tion site.

What you’ll learn here:

The Main Bad Born­heim demons­trates that sustaina­bi­lity begins long before the buil­ding’s mecha­nical and elec­trical systems are installed. Sound decis­ions made early in the plan­ning process—such as forgoing a base­ment or opting for a compact design—can conserve resources while simul­ta­neously enhan­cing a buil­ding’s quality.

However, a project only becomes econo­mic­ally sustainable in the long term if archi­tec­ture, tech­no­logy, and craft­sman­ship are considered toge­ther from the very begin­ning. It is precisely this synergy that trans­forms a good idea into a bath­room that works over the long term.