News:Â construction is underway on an outdoor bathing lake in Riehen, Switzerland, by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.
Naturbad Riehen will be filled with natural water without chlorine or chemical additives and is designed to accommodate 2000 bathers per day. As well as the pool for bathers, the Naturbad will incorporate a series of biological water treatment basins embedded in a sloping field on the other side of the road.
Herzog & de Meuron originally won a competition to design a municipal pool for Riehen in 1979, but the scheme was shelved in 1982. The Swiss architects were then commissioned to rethink the concept in 2007, when they abandoned the conventional swimming pool concept in favour of a facility using natural filtration.
The pool is expected to be completed in 2014.
Last month Herzog & de Meuron was among 12 international firms shortlisted to design a new headquarters for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden, while earlier this year they completed three halls for the Messe Basel exhibition centre – see all architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.
Last year we featured a proposal for a skyscraper in Peru with vertiginous swimming pools sticking out of every apartment and a concept for a pool under an inverted dome at an Istanbul primary school – see all swimming pools.
Above: site plan
Images by Herzog & de Meuron.