The Bad Aibling Spa Complex by Behnisch, Behnisch & Partner, to be completed in 2005, is an indoor-outdoor, 1.4-acre oasis that will provide swimming pools and wellness facilities, all the while showcasing the firm’s multi-season sustainable design in temperate Bad Aibling, Bavaria, a small community 40 miles east of Munich.

The facility will feature leisure pools, a thermal spa, and various wellness and sunbathing areas organized in and around a series of dome-like structures, some of which are fully glazed with features that maximize solar gain. Connected by a glass-enclosed winter garden filled with rich plantings to create an ecological micro-climate, the domes will provide a prominent visual presence and play an important role in the project’s energy-saving strategy.

To connect the user to the natural elements, Behnisch, Behnisch & Partner developed a simple design program. The domes do double duty: housing swimming pools, spas, and interior gathering areas and providing views to the surrounding landscape. The winter garden modulates the sloping site slightly, allowing the surrounding bathing areas to undulate freely into the landscape, where abundant greenery and trees, a nearby river, and the Bavarian mountain range visually enclose the complex.

The energy-saving plan, created in consultation with German engineering firm, Transsolar, is largely driven by the development of seasonal climatic zones in the interior spaces. The zones are spatially configured and designed to provide thermal comfort levels appropriate to each area. The pool and spa domes maintain a hot, humid temperature; the air in the winter garden will be comfortable and dry. The flexible structural configuration of the domes allows them to be partially dismantled during summer months for ventilation and open to the surrounding landscape. In fall and spring, the domes can be opened to dissipate overnight the day’s solar heat gain. The energy-saving concept also features heat recovery systems, condensation-boiler technology, heat pumps, and solar-gain-enhancement devices.

The firm works in both the public and private sectors. Other projects include the Genzyme Center in Cambridge, Mass., which is pending LEED™ Platinum rating; Norddeutsche Landesbank (Nord LB) in Hannover, Germany; the Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research in Toronto; The St. Benno Grammar School in Dresden, Germany; and the Institute for Forestry and Nature Research in Wageningen, The Netherlands.

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