WATERSPORTS CENTER AND RESORT HELENESEE

Near the Polish-German border, a few kilometres south of the city of Frankfurt a/d Oder, lies the Helenesee, a former coal pit which was transformed into recreational lake. With its clear water and an extraordinary depth of up to 90 meters its is loved by, among others, divers. During the summer months the white beaches are daily filled with thousands of visitors. In terms of facilities, the current Helenesee has little: a few hundred camping sites, a diving school and only a few cafeterias present today. A group of Dutch investors therefore came up with a plan for the development of a resort with 650 apartments, 200 houses, 1500 pitches and an extensive array of amenities and sporting facilities.

The master plan of the resort is based on three different types of accommodation: camping, luxury holiday chalets and shared holiday apartments. The plot layout of the houses gives the experience of random placement, but makes sure that all houses have the same amount of open space. All visitor parking is to take place on the edge of the area, right where the entrance is. From every house there it is just a short walk to the promenade and the water. Along the promenade are a number of clustered facilities, including shops, restaurants, sports, water sports centre and diving school. The facilities are accessible on the north side of for service and delivery by a road parallel to the boulevard.

The most prominent building is the water sports centre. This building, which measures a 150 to 150 meters, houses an indoor wild water canoeing track, a tropical swimming pool and various water attractions such as Surf-rider, Skimboard-pool and a Lazy River, and a large sauna and wellness centre. The building has a simple structure and the distribution of climatic zones provides a clear organization of the program. The collection of attractions forms a sculptural water landscape with a strong visual relationship with the surrounding landscape and lake. Below this the water landscape and sunk into the ground, the water storage and other facilities are located, together with the more private parts of the sauna.
The green roof is designed as a sculptural landscape. In summer it can be use as a sunbathing deck and climbing landscape and in winter, when covered with snow, for snowboarding. In addition, the living roof visually connects with the tops of the surrounding forest and will serve as a habitat for local flora and fauna. Through a number of incisions in the roof, the daylight can pass deep into the building and will illuminate the water landscape in a constantly changing and unexpected way. The space between the water landscape and sculptural roof will be furnished as climbing forest. This analogy is reinforced by the variation in column width and the irregular placement of columns generated by the structure of the roof. Between the columns stretches a course of rope bridges. Besides the view of the landscape and the sound of water, the shape of the roof contributes to a special climbing experience.