Aquacenter
Aalborg, Denmark
The Aquacenter is a competition entry for a 4600 square meter addition to an existing sports complex in Aalborg. The facilities consist of a series of large pools, saunas, cafes and locker rooms. Future plans included the addition of a hockey rink.
The committee looked for designs that worked between the functional, rectangular format of lap pools and thenewer “water worlds” which use the pool as entertainment center. The proposal was a form of super-pool that could accommodate a myriad of aquatic activities. We extended the concept to include the site. Surface water is retained in hollows cut into the flat plane of the ground making it a wet park during the summer and an area for skating during the winter.
The form for the pools is derived from two cultural sources, the construction of Viking boats which accounts for the large roof structure over the complex and super-ellipses, involuted volumes studied by the Danish mathematician Piet Hein.