Set in the heart of a small, quaint little Bavarian city, Ebersberg Hallenbad stands with a strong gracefulness. Designed in 1974, the exterior has a strong presence, with its façade clad in precast concrete and punctured with glazing on the east and the south façade giving an impression of a monolithic structure rather than that of an assembled one.
The scope of refurbishment is limited to the public zone which includes redesigning the interior layout, to achieve a more efficient circulation pattern and also to enlarge the existing children’s pool into a larger training pool of 50 square meter.
The existing ceiling above the swimming pool, which is an asymmetric and off-centered ‘V’, poses an interesting paradox of interior spatial quality. The main idea was to optimize this condition through a dynamic design of the acoustic lamellas in the ceiling. The atmospheric effect created around the 25m swimming pool and the training swimming pool is drastically differentiated from the ceiling design.
While the intertwining of two sets of lamellas above the 25 meter swimming pool creates a sense of dynamism and directionality, the low height ceiling punctured by gentle scooped out spheres above the training pool creates a sense of calm and serenity. This softer approach to the interior is very much in contrast to the rigid and dominating form of the exterior thereby enhancing the element of surprise.
Ebersberg, Germany
design