After thoroughly examining the designed area and the competition brief, we decided to divide the newly designed buildings into two separate masses with an identical visual formal expression. The first one-storey building with a 25-metre swimming pool and an indoor children's pool is proposed on the south-eastern side of the current Municipal Indoor Swimming Pool building, to which it will be connected in a wheelchair-accessible way.
The floor level of the new pool hall is at the level of the surrounding ground of the outdoor living areas to create a barrier-free connection through the glazed façade. The second proposed three-storey building, lining Vysokoškolákov Street, houses the main entrance to the swimming pool with facilities, a separate wellness area and a restaurant.
It is of a distinctly elongated mass and is identical in height to the existing swimming pool facilities. The link to the current swimming pool is proposed via its staircase landing at 0.000 level. The designed building is multifunctional. On the 1st floor, there is an entrance to the underground garage, the offices managing the outdoor summer swimming pool area, the entrance area with facilities and changing rooms, the catering part of the swimming pool, a separate restaurant and a functionally separate wellness area with massage areas. On the 2nd floor, there is a wellness area with changing rooms, a sauna world, a tepidarium and part of the roof used as a terrace for sunbathing, dining, workout and relaxation. The roof terrace has a grid of frames above it, which naturally follows the facade grid of the wooden exoskeleton. The frames are also used for the installation of optional tarpaulin shading. We plan to green the roof terrace with vertical and climbing foliage with controlled irrigation. Parking is proposed on the 1st floor, where the technical facilities of the entire building and the wellness pools are located. Three vertical circulation cores with elevators run through all the floors of the building, along with one exterior fire staircase.
The operation of staircases and elevators is designed not to interfere with the operations of the paid and unpaid zones or with using the roof terrace outside of the swimming pool's operating hours. Underground parking is provided for both employees and visitors during the year-round operation of the wellness and dry-foot restaurant. The entrance lobby with ticket offices for the swimming pool area can be closed for safety reasons outside of the swimming pool's operating hours. The changing rooms and changing cubicles are designed to be open and wheelchair accessible. The public toilets can be closed for safety during the off-season. Catering facilities serving visitors to the paid zone have a wheelchair and doorless access and separate supply from the exterior of the building.
In terms of mass, both buildings are spaced apart from the existing swimming pool building and thus do not interfere with its shape and volume. The two new buildings can be visually connected by reinforced concrete pillars with an archway, i.e. a kind of arcade, which provides a natural visual and physical separation of the year-round open outdoor part of the indoor swimming pool from the seasonal outdoor pools.
The load-bearing system of the buildings is made of GLT (glued laminated timber) and forms a grid of facade exoskeleton, whose axial distance is adopted from the segmentation of the eastern facade of the existing swimming pool hall - 2 650 mm. The load-bearing ceiling structure is also made of GLT. In the case of the 25-metre pool hall building, it is a coffered ceiling made of GLT beams. The infill walls of the envelope are lightweight timber sandwich panels.
Vertical communication cores and protected escape routes are from architectural reinforced concrete. An extensive green roof is proposed on the roofs of the new buildings as well as the existing swimming pool facilities. The technical facilities of the entrance building, wellness and restaurant are in the basement.
The second building of the 25-metre swimming pool is connected to the technical facilities and existing technology in the basement of the current pool hall or uses the space of this basement. Both buildings are designed in passive standard with controlled air recuperation. All glazed parts of the façade and window openings have external shutter shading. We propose to replace the glazed wall in the existing swimming pool building, dividing it into two parts. It is composed of a large window area with six sliding doors to the terrace and photovoltaic panels in the grid of the original window division. We placed these on the façade due to the insufficient load-bearing capacity of the roof of the existing swimming hall. Our design also modifies the layout of the existing toilets and showers near the changing rooms in the old indoor swimming pool building. The solution is presented here. We have designed the outdoor summer swimming pool area following the client's requirements and are completing the details in the second round. Also, we modified the main outdoor 50-metre pool and added an entrance staircase. The second pool - the adventure pool - is designed with motion and whirlpool attractions and waterslides. We added children's pools, playgrounds and slides located on the slopes of the artificial hill. The hill is created from excavated soil and acts as a visual and acoustic barrier between the adventure pool and the children's pools. The pools' surroundings have an attractive seating area complemented by outdoor furniture, including deckchairs.
The area is complemented by a small fast-food building with space for outdoor covered dining and public toilets. The main facilities of the outdoor area are designed in the entrance building on the west side. The difference in height level between the existing pool hall and the outdoor pools is used for recreational terraces of different heights. These can operate all year round, accessible from the pool hall. The summer green areas, reserved for sunbathing, have a proposed additional winter function of a public ice rink and a 250 m long cross-country skiing track. The area of the summer swimming pool is illuminated by multiple-type lighting. We added sidewalks, cycle paths and parking spaces to the roads. In front of the main entrance to the swimming pool, we maintained a walking plaza, supplemented with vertical greenery that protects against noise and sun. We extended this plaza in front of the existing restaurant, which will be able to enlarge its patio seating, possibly under the trees.
Turning points are proposed at the ends of the one-way streets. We added spaces for bicycles, bike-sharing and scooter parking. Concerning the parking spaces, we maintained the solution of the first round of the competition. The main parking spaces are proposed in the basement of the new entrance building, where independent parking stackers are designed. Access to the underground parking is from Za plavárňou Street. Outdoor parking is designed perpendicular along the entire facade of the new entrance building. Bus parking is proposed on the south side of Za plavárňou Street. The pedestrian road is circular around the whole area of the Municipal Swimming Pool. We suggest planting the trees outside of the site in contact with the parking and pedestrian road and residential areas. The area renovation and planting of vertical greenery will be subject to dendrological assessment and appropriate landscape design. The design proposes sustainable building materials, such as recycled concrete and other materials with a low carbon footprint and primary energy. Rainwater from rooftops will be captured in underground retention basins and recycled to irrigate green spaces on the site or used as grey water for flushing public toilets. Photovoltaic panels will cover the energy needs of the operational lighting of the roads and technical areas.
