Sorenga Seawater Pool

Sørenga harbour promenade, beach and sea water pool is a new public recreational area in Bjørvika, Oslo. The new public areas are located at the tip of the redeveloped Sørenga pier, a former part of the container port in Oslo. The pier has been transformed into a multiuse urban area, with restaurants and cafés and about 800 new apartments.

The middle part of the Sørenga pier has a new park area that extends into a beach. Around the whole pier a new harbour promenade culminates and extends into a wooden floating jetty with diving boards a 50-metre pool with lanes, and a 200 sq metre seawater pool. The beach and sea water pool is exposed to the fjord and has a wide view out to the Hovedøya island and over the city centre, with the new Barcode area and the Oslo Opera house. The new areas offer opportunities for water related activities in summer and is in use as a recreational area throughout the year. The 50-metre sea pool allows for training and competitions, and there is a diving tower, seating and open-air showers. The floating structure and all elements are covered with a timber decking, a materiality that binds the jetty and harbour promenade together.

The idea of a public, floating park was a key part of the masterplan and the design competition for Sørenga pier, won in 2005 by LPO architects (Oslo) and Architect Kristine Jensens Tegnestue (Aarhus). New housing on the pier requires protection from impacts by an unlikely, but possible, ship accident. The technical solution was to make the waters shallower nearer to the pier, which allowed for the new beach. The concept for the park is a division between the land side and a floating structure, in such a way that the water becomes the most active part of the park. The wooden surface of the jetty is a large open space, with a rough and robust expression, and is intended to reflect elements from former harbour structures.

The new recreational areas at Sørenga pier are intended both for the new inhabitants on the pier as well as for the city as a whole. The beach and sea water pool has become a very popular new recreational destination in a part of Oslo that is under major transformation, and for an inner city that has lacked physical contact with the sea.

The jetty is wood-covered concrete structure, measuring 190 meters long by 28 meters wide. It weighs 4650 tons and is about 3700 square meters. Inside the concrete there are 5800 cubic meter water resistant polystyrene. The park and promenade are universally designed with respect to materiality, transitions gradient of ramps and orientation options. All the wood-covered areas are in Kebony, a Norwegian-developed technology. Kebony is environmentally friendly, patented process, which enhances the properties of sustainable softwood with a bio-based liquid. The process permanently modifies the wood cell walls giving Kebony premium hardwood characteristics and a rich brown color. Over time, the surface fades, but keeps its technical properties.