Dezső Gyarmati Swimming-Pool, Budapest

Architects: Kis Péter, Varga Béla
Text: Kiss Tamás
Photos: Batár Zsolt
The new swimming-pool named after Dezső Gyarmati offers the venue and chance to local city-dwellers to do everyday exercise, whilst also meeting the needs of competitive sportspeople. The facility has an indoor and outdoor pool as well, suited to host Hungarian and international competitions, nonstop practices, as well as an instruction pool to train the next generations. The exterior architecture of the complex is a composition of basic geometrical images. The building is homogenous, with its dark gray cube and segmented arches on top. The prism is a monolith with a block-like appearance enhanced and counteracted by the delicate finish of the end walls of the staves. The latter is the most characteristic and excellently conceived feature of all the facade components of the house. The floor plan combined with waving segmented arches, asymmetrical vertically configurated ribs that produce grids on the facade produce a playful overall impression further enhanced by light and shadow effects. This type of sophistication reveals yet another facet after dusk owing to the illumination system hidden in the vertical ribs. The indoor swimming-pool for competitions is the focus of the floor-plan configuration of the whole complex. Touring these spaces one can obviously grasp and perceive the transparency which was the priority of the designers’ intention; along the longitudinal axis of the building the sequences of interior and exterior spaces are bordered with glass partitions. The contrasts of the palettes define the impressions we get: whilst the foyer floats in light grey and black tints, the suddenly expanding hall section of the swimming pool for competitions reveals snow-white sterility.
General design: Plant-Atelier Péter Kis Kft. and Tecton Építészmérnöki és Tanácsadó Kft.
Leading architects: Péter Kis, Béla Varga
Fellow architects: Anikó Tóth, Tamás Ükös, Bea Molnár, Péter Tokaji, Dalma Szunyoghy-Kollár, Zsolt Krausz
Interiors: Péter Kis, Beáta Molnár – Plant-Atelier Péter Kis Kft.
Structure: STR-Design Kft.
Framework: Gábor Bimbó – Bimbóterv Kft.
Bulding structures: Richárd Reisch, Attila Ámon – FRT Raszter Kft.
HVAC: András Bokor – Vizaterv Kft.
Electrical engineering: Sándor Páli – Artrea Kft.
Fire protection: György Báder – BNN Biztonságtechnika Kft., Béla Kulcsár –
Firetech Hungary Kft.
Pool technology: Zoltán Sallai – S-Terv Kft.
Roads: Balázs Németh – Global Construct Kft.
Landscape: Árpád Kovács – Újirány Tájépítész Kft.
Main contractor: A-Híd Zrt.
Investor: II. Kerületi Sport és Szabadidősport Nonprofit Kft.