‘Tis the season for stripping down and getting wet in the great outdoors. Unfortunately, the chlorine and chemicals used to keep man-made, al fresco watering holes clean can do a number on sensitive skin, which makes this Swiss pool all the more appealing; Herzog & de Meuron designed this beautiful lagoon with biofilters. Au naturel, ooh la la!
Naturbad Riehen actually represents the realization of plans almost three decades in the making. In 1979, the firm won a competition to reimagine a series of traditional, but somewhat outmoded wooden baths along the Rhine river. While those projects never came to be, Herzog & de Meuron kept the idea kicking around, and recently proposed this new incarnation that ditched the inorganic water treatments for a greener approach.
Biofilters buried in the sloping grass across the street from the facility keep the liquid safe for recreational play, with enough oomph to keep up to 2,000 bathers per day happy with unsullied h20.
The adjoining larch-wood structure nods to the past, but boy oh boy would I like to be there in the present. [Dezeen]
All images © 2014, Herzog & de Meuron Basel, © Michael Bär, reprinted with permission.
