Smolenicky &
Partner Architektur of Zurich have completed thermal baths featuring
oval apertures between tall wooden columns at Bad Ragaz, Switzerland.

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Called Tamina Thermal Baths, the project incorporates an indoor pool,
sauna, shops and restaurant.

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The 20 metre-high structure includes 115 columns.

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The wooden building is painted white inside and out.

Photographs are by Roland
Bernath except where stated otherwise.
Here are some more details from Smolenicky & Partner
Architecture:
GRAND RESORT BAD RAGAZ
NEW CONSTRUCTION OF TAMINA THERMAL BATHS
TOWN AND SITE PLANNING
Thermal baths with indoor bathing pool, large sauna area, shops and
restaurant.

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COMPETITION
The project for the Tamina thermal baths is the result of a two-stage
competition from 2003. The aim of the first phase of the process was to
coordinate the large pending architectural interventions in terms of
town planning.

Where should the new five-star hotel be located, where should the
extension of the medical centre be set, and how should the new public
thermal baths be accessed from the site? The plan was to invest and
coordinate a total of SFr. 160 million in new constructions and
structural alterations.

The second part of the competition involved designing the project’s
two major new constructions – the hotel and the thermal baths. The
architectural office Smolenicky & Partner won the project for the
Tamina thermal baths, Hilmer & Sattler and Albrecht Architects the
project for the new hotel.

LANDSCAPE SITUATION
The town-planning character of the resort is dominated by large
representative buildings set in an expansive park landscape. To this
extent the resort clearly distinguishes itself from the identity of the
village of Bad Ragaz. During the belle époque this principle of building
monumental hotels in close vicinity to a village was successfully
applied to a number of locations in the Swiss Alps. The most important
examples are Interlaken, St. Moritz and Gstaad. In Bad Ragaz two
cul-de-sacs fork off from the main road that runs through the golf
course connecting Bad Ragaz and Maienfeld. In the new project the
thermal baths were deliberately located on the cul-de-sac accessing the
resort’s public facilities, such as the new conference centre in the
renovated spa spring hall, the casino and the golf club house. The
second cul-de-sac running along the park has been kept free to provide
access to the three grand hotels, and emits a more private and calmer
atmosphere.

FORM AND EXTERIOR SPACE
Instead of being freestanding, the form of the building volume
emerges from the enclosing of exterior spaces. In the area of the
open-air baths, for instance, the volume of the building is stepped back
and opens out the sunbathing lawn to the wooded slopes of the mountain
ridge. The view extends past the existing buildings, screened by newly
planted groups of trees. The guests experience a park landscape that
melts into woods and mountain slopes.

The predominant landscaped, park-like atmosphere remains intact
despite the compact manner of building. Thus the resort remains
characterized by its park. The main entrance to the thermal baths, the
spa spring hall, is set on the visual axis of the cul-de-sac in order,
from the main road, to mark its presence in the depth of the site as a
public facility.

CRITERIA OF THE BUILDING
The Tamina thermal baths is explicitly conceived as a part of the
grand-hotel culture. The cultural and aesthetic identity of the project
seeks an affinity to both Swiss tradition and the grand hotels of the
Baltic coast, such as Heiligendamm.

For this reason the building volume has a monumental character, in
order to stand out as an institution equal to the other buildings in the
resort. Simultaneously the thermal baths are intended to relativize the
almost “urban” stonework character of the spa spring hall. This
explains the snow-white woodwork of the thermal baths, lending it the
pavilion-like character of the architecture of a historical holiday
resort.

This strategy of using an explicit resort architecture is underscored
in the building’s formally fanciful oval windows. Seen from the inside,
the windows have the effect of over-dimensional picture frames.

Oval picture frames were widespread in the Victorian era for landscape
scenes, whereby the intention in the current project is to give specific
expression to the view over the relatively neutral landscape by means
of the gesture of the frame.

INTERIOR SPACE AS A “FOREST”
Metaphorically the creation of the interior spaces of the project has
an analogy in cutting clearings in the pattern of a forest by felling
individual trees. This is the reverse of the common design process.

The exterior spaces are similarly created by “felling” supports on
the periphery of the building volume. Structurally the building can be
more or less seen as a forest, created out of columns instead of trees –
a total of 115 supports using the timber of 2,200 fir-trees (this
amount of wood is regenerated in Switzerland in two-and-a-half hours).

EXPRESSION AND MATERIAL
Materially the project possesses the same appearance internally and
externally.

The snow-white timber battens are carried over internally as wall
surfacing.

In this sense there is no actual interior architecture to the
building, but instead only a whole architecture of the building.

The timber structure of the building is not merely determined by the
criteria of the span of the supports.
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Instead of a focus on the engineering of the function of the supports
and the reinforcement of a construction, the structure concentrates far
more on spatial phenomena, creating a beauty and a ceremonial
atmosphere. Bathing is celebrated as a cultivated activity.
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Project address:

Tamina Therme, Grand Resort Bad Ragaz AG, CH-7310 Bad Ragaz, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Client:
Grand Resort Bad Ragaz AG, Pfäferserstrasse 8, CH-7310, Bad Ragaz
(main investor Thomas Schmidheiny)
Overall site, key figures (new constructions alterations):
overall site – 90,000 m2
total volume of site investment – SFr.160 million
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Tamina thermal baths, key figures:
building dimensions – length 95m, width 75m, height 20m
site area – 6,789m2
construction area – 3,535 m2
storey areas – 10,306 m2
construction volume acc. SIA 416 – 41,656 m3
investment costs – SFr. 41 million, of which SFr. 10 million in
timberwork
construction costs (building cost classification 2/m3) – SFr. 865/m3
timber use – 2,000 m3, corresponding to 2,200 fir-trees (regenerated in 2
½ hours in Switzerland)
no. of interior and exterior supports – 115
no. of wall elements – 43
no. of acoustic elements – 196
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Smolenicky & Partner Architecture, Zurich
Architect: Joseph Smolenicky
Project manager: Philipp Röthlisberger
Contributors: Simon Krähenbühl, Petr Michalek, Juan Carlos Smolenicky
Muñoz
Timberwork: Blumer-Lehmann AG, Gossau SG
Heating, cooling, plumbing and sanitary installation: Kannewischer
Engineering Office AG, Zug
General contractor: HRS Real Estate AG, Frauenfeld
BUILDING DETAILS
Grand Resort Bad Ragaz
Town and site planning
New construction of Tamina thermal baths

Posted by Rose Etherington from dezeen.com