ARCHITECTURE - Aqua

Spa & Leisure Complex - Berlin (Germany)

This industrial site is located between two water canals and the river Spree. The project invades the site with water, and thus creates a number of side channels that connect both side canals and plays with the idea of ​​water as a leisure item. The user will feel like floating on water while saving the catwalks crossing the space between the channels.

In this web of water channels two buildings will be located: a sports and leisure facilities center, with swimming-pools and ice rinks, located west of the site on the edge of the channel, and smaller scale building on the north bank of the Spree. This smaller building will house a spa. The idea is to open up to the river, so it is important not to stand on the site in a centripetal way, but to turn to the channels.

Both buildings are open to the sky through large skylights of steel, which will be proportionally higher in the spa. This promotes the idea of ​​the cover as "hat" or as a separate item from the rest of the building.

The entry of natural light is especially important in this type of complex, but at the same time it becomes impossible to maintain privacy. The skylights allow direct entry of light while maintaining privacy of space. These truncated pyramidal skylights provide the interior space with personal character, a bit in the way of a baldachin.