Undoubtedly, one of the biggest events of the past summers is the FINA Water World Championship, the jewel of the central building, the Duna Arena, is the glass mosaic whirlpool.
We previously reported on which parts of the building were insulated with RAVATHERM XPS during the construction of the Duna Arena, but our material was also used in a different way in the swimming complex, in a very special application. The torus shape of the 24-meter-circumference sparkling pool, located next to the training pool, was created from RAVATHERM XPS. This unusually shaped pool and the swirling pattern that covers it were dreamed up by the designers of MOME Design, but the execution gave them a lesson, which material can be used to make this shape in the most precise way, which is load-bearing, the surface can be coated, and it can be easily shaped? That’s when they contacted our company and Jafer Ltd., who have been working with closed-cell polystyrene foam for a long time. Creators like to use RAVATHERM XPS not only for thermal insulation, but also for decorative and artistic purposes, as it can be shaped well, it can be easily worked with few tools, and at the same time it is load-bearing, durable and does not amortize.
Jafer Kft. according to its executive director, János Fogarassy, ”we had to work very precisely, during the creation of the shape, the cut was measured continuously, since the pattern of the mosaics covering the torus had to be continuous, there could be no displacement due to inaccuracy.” The glass mosaics were placed over the thermally insulated concrete layer with white glue, the contractor Duoflex-Pool Ltd. from its managing director, Márta Hajduk, we know that there are a total of 158,436 1.5×1.5 cm pieces. Paving the torus shape – which bends in several directions – is not an easy task, the usual horizontal paving was not used, but the mosaics were placed vertically in rows. The meeting of the first and last row was a special challenge, since the mosaic paving is not done by machines and it was only possible to accurately calculate the meeting of the pattern on the last 1 m section. So the last stage had to be redesigned because reality overrode the math. The workshop work took almost 2 months, the paving work lasted 1.5 months.
The pool will be used for cooling down and relaxing muscles after playing sports.
You can see the construction of the glass mosaic whirlpool in the video below.