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Project Name: Coworth Park Spa
Location: Berkshire, UK
Architect: Purcell
Interior Designer: Fox Linton Associates
Completion: August 2010

Having created a luxury 21st Century country house at Coworth Park, the Dorchester Collection required a unique eco luxury spa. The spa emerges as a sculptural form from the natural landscape, blurring the edges between built and natural form. Facilities are arranged on two levels: a lower level with pool and gym, and an upper entry level containing the changing rooms, treatment rooms, lounges and café. 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. Spas are traditionally high water users and Coworth Park Spa has sought to reduce water uses across a wide range of measures. The ultra-violet pool has reduced backwash and overall water consumption and energy requirement without the excessive need of chemicals.