One-minute „coloured” about the Danube Arena

Undoubtedly one of the biggest events of the past summer was the FINA Water WORLD Cup. The gem of its main building, the Danube Arena, was the glass mosaic whirlpool.

We have previously reported which parts of the building were insulated with RAVATHERM XPS during the construction of the Danube Arena, but in the swimming complex they used our material in a very special application. The torus shape of the whirlpool with 24 m circumference next to the training pool is made from RAVATHERM XPS. This unusual shaped pool and the swirling pattern that covers it were dreamed up by designers of Mome Design, but the implementation gave them a difficult task, what material can be used to make this shape most precisely, its surface can be coated, which is load-bearing and easy to shape?
At that time they also contacted our company and also Jafer kft., who have been engaged in the sculpting of closed cell polystyrene foam for a long time. THE RAVATHERM XPS is used not only for thermal insulation, but also for decorative and artistic purposes, as it can be shaped easily, easy to carve with few tools, but also load-bearing, durable and non-dissolving. According to János Fogarassy, managing director of Jafer kft., „it was necessary to work very accurately, the cutting was constantly measured during the design of the shape, since the pattern of the mosaics covering the torus had to be continuous, there could be no displacement due to inaccuracy.” The 1.5×1.5 cm glass mosaics were placed with white glue above the insulated concrete layer, a total of 158,436 pieces according to Márta Hajduk, the managing director of Duoflex-pool kft.
Coating the torus shape, was not an easy task, since it bends in several directions, so it was not the usual horizontal covering, but the mosaics were placed vertically per line. A special challenge was to meet the first and last row, since the mosaic covering has not been carried out by machines so the final encounter of the pieces could only be calculated accurely on the last 1 m.
So the last stage had to be redesigned because reality overrode mathematics. The workshop took nearly 2 months, the paving work lasted 1.5 months.

The pool will be used for post-sport cool-down and muscle relaxation. You can see the construction of the glass mosaic vortex pool in the video below.