Coworth Park Spa, submitted by Purcell, has been shortlisted for the Hotel Design Award – Europe in the International Hotel & Property Awards 2014. The project will also compete for the Spa Hotel Award.
Coworth Park Spa is a sustainable building built into its landscape that provides an exclusive eco-luxury spa with low energy requirements. This sensitive site in the heart of the Surrey green belt necessitated an ingenious design that would minimise the spa’s volume and footprint and maximise its commanding views without compromising on comfort.
The spa is oriented to the sun’s morning to dusk path so that the outer rooms and terrace maximise natural light. The living roof is profiled to incorporate clerestory lighting to the rear underground treatment rooms as well as to the central radial corridor. It provides differing depths of growing medium that enable a range of natural herbs for use within the spa.
Carbon neutrality is the future for all modern designs and Coworth Park Spa is leading the way in the hospitality industry as an environmentally-advanced estate. Spa facilities are naturally energy intensive due to the high heating requirements, lighting levels and environmental requirements of the various treatment facilities offered. Coworth Park Spa is unique in its design which maximises the natural elements surrounding the building to offset the carbon impact of these requirements.
Its excellence and exemplar status is endorsed by being the world’s first spa to incorporate the ground-breaking use of carbon negative lime hemp walling combined with an innovative timber glulam monocoque structure that is reflected in the bowed timber ceiling to the spa pool, reminiscent of the underside of a boat. The living roof is at ground level to the rear and merges into the woodland floor of primroses and bluebells whilst creating a 21st century garden of lavender, camomile and thyme, further demonstrating the increased biodiversity of living roofs within the built environment and adding to the thermal efficiency of the building. The project uses some of the latest zero carbon and low energy technologies, many of which are being used for the first time on a project of this nature in the United Kingdom.