Project type: Academic - Master Thesis (diploma) - Aalborg University, Denmark

Year: 2017

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Authors:

Jesper Søndergaard

Piotr Zbierajewski

Svinkløv Badehotel 2.0 is a proposal of a new hotel in a place of the old Badehotel in Svinkløv that was burned down after catching fire in September 2016. The new building is trying to get all the good qualities of the old one and present them in a new, contemporary way. In the same time the building is presenting quite unique natural ventilation solutions with its characteristic long, sharp roof.

 

The board of directors of the Svinkløv Foundation Erf. wanted to rebuild this hotel as fast as possible. But this would mean rebuilding a replica of the old building. This thesis tried to answer the question: What would happen if the foundation would wait a few years and change the local plan? In the same time the site owners wanted the new building to be sustainable. This was the key criteria for it.

 

After collaboration with the foundation the thesis’ authors realised how iconic hotel and what a fantastic place it was. Known to almost all society in Denmark, it was clear that it was in national interest to bring back the very soul of the Badehotel.

 

While preparing to this master thesis in late 2016, its authors, master programme architecture students Jesper Søndergaard and Piotr Zbierajewski from Aalborg University were searching for a site and a theme for their diploma. Svinkløv seemed perfect, since it could be used as an example of a fresh and quick work on the site that lost its previous function.

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More an icon than a hotel

 

While researching the topic and history of the old Svinkløv Badehotel, authors became more and more fascinated not only by the history of the site but also an impact that it had on (mostly) Danish society. Generations of families were coming there to escape from everyday life and to enjoy nature and sea. It started to be obvious that no other function will fit on this site than the new Badehotel. This was the place which was used as a solitude but also as a place, where there is no technology (no TV, no internet connection) and where people have socialised together through generations. Those were very important design criteria for the thesis’ authors.

 

Focus on natural ventilation

 

During 2st master degree year at Aalborg University, both authors started to be interested in a sustainable architecture solutions. Their advantages and disadvantages. Quite surprisingly it turned out that from many aspects of this kind of architecture, one in particular seemed to be treated as a problematic one. Ventilation. More and more buildings are working mainly on mechanical ventilation, providing, formally, with right amount of fresh air. Most of such buildings are having huge issues when something in the ventilation system stops to work. Moreover, such systems are also using energy, have some maintenance cost and a life cycle. In many situations, every other aspect of the sustainable elements were designed in one way or another. But ventilation was the one that was usually left untouched to the very end in an approach: ‘it is going to be solved one way or another.

 

This resulted in a research done on natural ventilation. It was then transformed into a result on natural ventilation solutions for the building. 

 

The new Badehotel

 

Comparing to the old hotel which had two different groups of rooms, one towards the nature and one towards the sea, this project decided to rotate the building towards the north and give exactly the same quality of view for every guest room in the hotel. Vertical shafts have been introduced to provide air exchange in the building as well as piping for the bathrooms. The old hotel used common rooms to connect the whole building in the ground floors. This concept has been brought back. Each of the rooms has been connected to the shafts to provide natural ventilation. Guest rooms have been placed on the first floor according to the strategy of having the same qualities of view  from them. They were also attached to the building in a way that they could directly connect to the shafts. The new roof uses the strategy of creating a negative pressure on the top of the roof (lower pressure than the one on the facades). This makes natural ventilation outlet very efficient. Openings have been designed to fit the functions of the rooms. Façade windows are working as cross and stack ventilation airflow. Roof windows are being used not only for ventilating the bathrooms but also for providing natural light in the bathroom, as well as additional light to the bedrooms thanks to the glazing between them and the bathrooms.

 

Both of those aspects: architectural and sustainable, met together and gave a result of this. This is a proposal for new Svinkløv Badehotel.

 

Svinkløv Badehotel 2.0.