The world’s largest indoor pool
05 Mar The world’s largest indoor pool
An Indoor Pool on a Massive Scale
Think you’ve seen some grand indoor pool projects? This one, a commercial waterpark located in the heart of Europe near Berlin, is truly colossal in scope.
The dimensions are simply gigantic: The Tropical Island hall is 1,181 feet long, 688 feet wide and 350 feet tall. The Statue of Liberty could stand inside it and eight football fields could fit inside the 16-acre grounds.
The big challenge for the architects was amassing enough structural strength to withstand the volume of rain and snow that can accumulate on a 17-acre roof. Almost 14,000 tons of steel were used for the building.
At nearly 200 million cubic feet, it is one of the largest buildings on Earth by volume, and is the world’s largest single hall without supporting pillars inside. The structure was originally commissioned as an airship hangar, but the airship it was intended to house was never built. When the airship company went bankrupt, Tropical Islands Resort purchased the property and built the grounds into a holiday park.
In spite of its size, the giant building is a lightweight in terms of design. Five arching steel members form the bones of the semi-cylindrical structure, over which is laid a membrane-like roof. In order for the hall to function as a tropical holiday environment, a special UV-translucent panel was inserted on the south side of the dome to let the sun shine in.
Inside is a 600-foot-long beach that descends into a warm (82 degree) artificial ocean complete with small tropical islands. There are approximately 50,000 plants living in this virtual greenhouse, which can hold up to 6,000 tropical island vacationers.