Béarn · France
Pool and spa beneath the vaults of a wine cellar
A former stone wine cellar turned into a pool, steam room and resting room, on a wine estate in Béarn.
Overview
Indoor pool under the blond stone vaults of a former wine cellar.
The project
The estate had let its nineteenth-century cellar sleep. We installed an indoor pool, a whirlpool, a hammam and a sauna there, keeping the stone vaults exposed. Low light from the air vents runs across the water, and the place keeps its cellar silence.
The constraints
An old building has neither the heights nor the walls of a swimming pool: damp, condensation under the vault, uneven floors, no provision for services. The stone had to be protected from water-laden air while letting the building breathe.
What we did
The pool was fitted as a vessel independent of the walls, on a new slab, and air treatment was calculated for the vault. The stainless steel channel runs at the foot of the stone, the hammam has a mosaic and a fibre-optic starry ceiling, and the plant room was dug under the courtyard so as to add nothing to the volume.
Photographs
Stainless steel grated overflow channel, mosaic-clad side wall, of a hotel whirlpool. 
Fibre-optic starlit ceiling above a hammam: each point is a fibre of light. Hammam bench in mosaic, laid on mesh, with continuous joints right into the curves.
Project data
- Year of completion
- 2018
- Pool
- 15 m by 6 m
- Depth
- from 1.30 to 1.50 m
- Length of works
- 18 months
- Lining
- Light natural stone
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