The disused municipal swimming pool in Abbiategrasso (Mi) has been replaced with a new swimming centre including indoor and outdoor pools and a spray park, built through a public-private partnership project.

Exteriors of the swimming pool in Abbiategrasso (Mi)

The project exploits and optimises the excavation and demolition of the previous building in order not to change the morphological structure of the area and to optimise the available economic resources.

For the new swimming centre the main objectives and goals the designers have adhered to are:

• flexibility and functionality to obtain a space suitable for different needs and ways of use, creating water spaces with different characteristics;
• containment of management costs, through the optimal sizing of the volumes, adequate thermal insulation, careful definition of the plant engineering components, the choice of durable materials, ease of maintenance of the various components of the building organism;
• safety both for normal operation for training and in the case of large public attendance in compliance with the regulations in force;
• architectural solutions to give a balanced product in the formal choices, correctly inserted in the area and easy to read.

In the covered volume there is a 6-lane 25-metre pool, a medium training pool with whirlpool, and a children’s pool. On the outside, the outline of the existing pool was readapted, the cladding and technical installations were redone, and a spray park was added.

The building is presented as a succession and interpenetration of solid volumes; each elevation has its own identity to better suit the indoor/outdoor function the building needs. However, the four elevations are in harmony with each other thanks to the harmonious shape of the roof.