Construction starts on Naturbad Riehen by Herzog & de Meuron


Construction has started on Naturbad Riehen, a natural swimming pool for the municipality of Riehen. A project that dates back to the founding of Herzog & de Meuron in 1978. After winning a competition in 1979 and developing several unrealized projects in the following years, Herzog & de Meuron were commissioned to rethink the concept of a new pool in 2007.


The idea of building an unconventional swimming pool close to nature arose. Expressed on technical, architectural and material levels, the standard geometric swimming pool is transformed into a bathing lake where technical systems and machine rooms vanish, to be substituted by planted filtering cascades. The Naturbad Riehen will provide new and valuable public space open whole year long for the local population of Riehen.

The site is over 5,000 square metres with the pool at over 1,000 square metres. The pool is designed for not only for relaxing and paddling but also will include 4 x 25m long lanes. The water treatment cycle will be able to accommodate daily peaks of up to 2,000 bathers (spread throughout the day). The bathroom is of its dimensions therefore well adapted to the expected number of visitors – both in terms of daily and seasonal guests.


Planned completion is expected for 2014. The budget for the project is 2.5million swiss francs (just over 2.6 million USD)

More information about Naturbad Riehen – the natural pool

IMAGES COURTESY OF Naturbad Riehen Renders by Herzog & de Meuron

Found via Dezeen

About Damian Holmes 3429 Articles
Damian Holmes is the Founder and Editor of World Landscape Architecture (WLA). He is a registered landscape architect (AILA) working in international design practice in Australia. Damian founded WLA in 2007 to provide a website for landscape architects written by landscape architects. Connect on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianholmes/

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