A lesson in harmony

The vital:werk in Waldshut-Tiengen

DUFFNER ARCHITEKTEN BDA

About

In autumn 2018, the comple­tely reno­vated and signi­fi­cantly expanded indoor pool with sauna opened in Waldshut-Tiengen, a district town in Baden-Würt­tem­berg with just under 25,000 inha­bi­tants. It is now called vital:werk.

The buil­ding complex from the 1970s, which also includes the town hall, no longer met today’s requi­re­ments for acces­si­bi­lity, fire protec­tion and buil­ding services. In addi­tion, the faci­li­ties offered should be extended to be in keeping with the times.

Room acou­sti­cally effec­tive real wood surfaces by Ligno­trend support the lively and harmo­nious impres­sion of the pool.

All in one

The vital:werk was to be func­tion­ally combined with rooms for theatre, concerts and sports, equipped for the future, and be attrac­tively and econo­mic­ally desi­gned.

Until the buil­ding appli­ca­tion, a consor­tium of four archi­tects worked toge­ther on the plan­ning concept for the entire complex, after which the indi­vi­dual areas were sepa­rated.

A new pres­ti­gious foyer buil­ding was erected in front of the exis­ting buil­ding. In addi­tion, a new sauna complex was created, which is situated under the ground with two atriums.

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The vital:werk

The moder­ni­sa­tion and expan­sion of the indoor swim­ming pool was planned by the archi­tect Michael Duffner, who is based in Waldshut-Tiengen. The vital:werk has been extended by around 500 m². A compe­ti­tion pool was already in place, the flexible lear­ning pool with cubic capa­city floor and slide as well as an addi­tional toddler bathing area with play attrac­tions are new.

Equipped with now three pools, a play area and a comfor­table heated lounging area, the vital:werk is now ideal for fami­lies, as well as swim­ming clubs and school sports.

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Zest and atmosphere

Wood played a crucial role in the inte­rior design of the baths. The plan­ners wanted to create a quiet and at the same time lively and harmo­nious atmo­sphere, and they have succeeded very well.

The finely profiled real wood surfaces made of light, knot­less, processed silver fir wood make a decisive contri­bu­tion to this posi­tive impres­sion. They are arranged undu­la­ting between the concrete beams of the ceiling on a wooden struc­ture. They are called Ligno Acou­stic light and were manu­fac­tured by cross lami­nated timber specia­list Ligno­trend.

In order to enhance the charisma of the wood surface, the archi­tects wanted to inte­grate the neces­sary ceiling fixtures as discreetly as possible. The openings for the venti­la­tion system, for example, are desi­gned as narrow joints between panels and joists. The lighting was comple­tely decou­pled from the wooden elements.

Of course, all built-in elements meet the buil­ding physics requi­re­ments. There is no reason why wood should not be used for indoor swim­ming pools. The mate­rial will always remain dry. To meet the requi­re­ments for a public assembly room, a special version of the acou­stic panels fulfils the criterion of a “flame-retar­dancy of the surface”.

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Anything else?

Even in a sepa­rate room for events with plenty of glass, which serves school classes and swim­ming clubs as a teaching room, Ligno Acou­stic light panels are installed on the wall and improve the acou­stic atmo­spheres. This also applies to the pool attendant’s room. 

In the sauna, the archi­tects adapted the surfaces to the furnis­hings. Ther­e­fore, they decided to use fine-grained hemlock fir instead of silver fir.

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Conclusion

After almost three years of cons­truc­tion, the ensemble consis­ting of  town hall and vital:werk was reopened in autumn 2018. The buil­ding, which has been expanded to a total of 3,600 m² — almost doubling in size — now accom­mo­dates around 1,200 visi­tors.

Thanks to its successful design and the clever and sustainable choice of mate­rials used, it quickly became the most promi­nent cultural centre of Waldshut-Tiengen.

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We did this.

Project data and compa­nies involved

Architects

Michael Duffner
Dipl.-Ing. Freier Archi­tekt BDA
Kalva­ri­en­berg­strasse 1 a
D — 79761 Waldshut-Tiengen

Overall design

S 4 Archi­tekten Waldshut-Tiengen
Michael Duffner, Gerold Müller, Henning Musahl, Ernesto Preiser

Client

Text

Iris Darstein-Ebner
Ruess Public T GmbH

Photos

Ligno­trend / Foto: Foto&Design, Waldshut-Tiengen

Operator & adress

vital:werk
Fried­rich­straße 9
D‑79761 Waldshut-Tiengen

Ceiling panels

Ligno­trend
Land­strasse 25
D–79809 Weil­heim-Bann­holz

Wood in indoor swimming pools

The ideal choice

Moisture behaviour

The intrinsic mois­ture of wood remains uncri­ti­cally low even in the typical indoor climate. The mate­rial is also insen­si­tive to chlo­rine-conta­mi­nated air. In indoor swim­ming pools, wooden elements outside of the spray water area can be used without hesi­ta­tion, because the common venti­la­tion systems with humi­dity control define both indoor climate and wood mois­ture. At an assumed tempe­ra­ture of 30°C and a rela­tive humi­dity of 55% to a maximum of 75%, it sets itself at about 14%. This is a value that is defi­ni­tely too dry for harmful orga­nisms like mould.

Room acoustics

The room acou­stics effect of the elements is achieved mainly by natural wood fibre absor­bers, which are inte­grated behind the joints of the cover layer in the elements. This allows absorp­tion values αW up to 0.90 to be achieved and diffe­rent room acou­stics targets to be imple­mented, as required in the rele­vant direc­tives, for example in DIN 18041 in Germany. For highest buil­ding biology quality, the panels are tested accor­ding to the parti­cu­larly strict certi­fi­ca­tion system “nature­plus”.

Fire protection

The flame-retar­dant Ligno real wood acou­stic panels treated with a new impreg­na­tion, show their natural wood tone authen­ti­cally and thus stand in a char­ming contrast to the other­wise rather hard and cool-looking mate­rials that were used in Waldshut. In case of fire, sani­tary fire-retar­dants in the wood delay the spread of the fire.

Lignotrend

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Ligno­trend is known for inno­va­tion, high quality and free confi­gu­ra­tion of the products in terms of indi­vi­dual requi­re­ments. Safe buil­ding with free plan­ning is possible without rest­ric­tions with the products of the company. With product deve­lo­p­ment, ther­e­fore, the focus is clearly on the archi­tec­tural class and the best buil­ding struc­tural physics proper­ties (room acou­stics, sound insu­la­tion and large spans).

Health safety and ecolo­gical harm­less­ness as well as long-term func­tion­a­lity and value reten­tion are the central compon­ents of the product philo­sophy — certi­fied accor­ding to the strict rules of nature­plus e.V.

The company Ligno­trend based in Weil­heim-Bann­holz (Germany) has been produ­cing cross-lami­nated timber elements for modern timber cons­truc­tion since 1992. They are used throug­hout Europe in resi­den­tial cons­truc­tion and in muni­cipal / commer­cial buil­ding cons­truc­tion. Ligno­trend curr­ently employs 130 people and has a produc­tion capa­city of 200,000 m² per year. 

The company’s product range includes solu­tions for cons­truc­tion, inte­rior design and facades – from load-bearing wall, ceiling and roof elements to acou­stic panels, insu­la­tion stands and facade panels.

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At “More Sports. More Archi­tec­ture.” you will find func­tional, spec­ta­cular and simply beau­tiful buil­dings and faci­li­ties for sports and leisure.

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