An indoor pool lined in warm timber, lit by long strips of light along the ceiling

Bagni Gandria

Location: Gandria, Lake Lugano, Switzerland
Year: 2022
Type: Hospitality
Area: 900 m²
Client: A family-run hotel
Status: Completed 2022

A spa cut into the rock below a small lakeside hotel, lined in larch and lit as if it were always evening.

Materials

Larch boards, oiled
Slate, honed
Cast concrete
Bronze

The hotel had no room to grow except downwards. We dug out the ground under the garden terrace and built one long room around a twenty-metre pool, with a band of glass at the far end that looks out over the water.

Every surface is warm to the touch: larch on the walls and ceiling, oiled slate underfoot. Light comes from slots in the ceiling and from under the benches, never from a fitting you can see.

A dark timber pool hall with a band of windows at the far end reflected in the water — Fig. 02The pool hall and the window over the lake · Glazed band, 14 m

The loungers were made by a joiner in the Malcantone from the same larch as the walls, cut to the same section as the boards.

Timber loungers with white towels on a slate floor beside a dark pool — Fig. 03Loungers in larch on the slate floor · Larch, oiled

A long pool beside a timber deck with loungers, under a ceiling of glowing lines of light — Fig. 04Light from the ceiling slots and under the benches

A dim guest room with heavy curtains, a stone wall panel and a black armchair — Fig. 05A guest room upstairs, refitted in the same materials