Watt'n Bad - Germany

Location: Germany 

Following modernisation and expansion completed in July 2014, the Watt’n Bad is now presented as a spacious bathing landscape independent of the tides and weather offering an outdoor wave pool and indoor pool right next to Dorum beach. The new main entrance is south-west of the outdoor pool in a free-standing new building accommodating two large changing areas. The area facing the shoreline serves as a starting point for hiking tours through the mud flats. The other half of the building accommodates changing rooms for the outdoor pool in summer. Visitors initially enter a lobby whose colours and materials reflect the North Sea only a few metres away: earth-brown floor tiles (Valley series) automatically conjure up images of the mud flats while the reception counter panelled with horizontal strips of wood is reminiscent of ship decks.

The idea by the janßen bär partnerschaft architectural agency to use these materials to achieve a link to the immediate surroundings is also apparent in the distribution of light grey and dark grey concrete panels featured by the outdoor pool surround which reflect the texture of the streaks drawn by tidal creeks in the mud flats. The pool edge is formed by a high, sandy-beige and blue tiled splashback which, along with a spray water channel (Wiesbaden channel) integrated in the side pool wall, ensures that the water does not flow over during wave mode. In the flat “beach area” however, an integrated channel flush with the floor was used which can be closed on the inside and is positioned exactly where the still water level is during standard operation but is otherwise entirely washed around.