Phi 12 — Ispiring open masterpiece
A new deep thermal water space created by Boaretto family, for scientific, medical-underwater and aerospace research, for rescue and recovery training, cinema productions.
TEN YEARS LATER Y-40 THE DEEP JOY DOUBLES:
"PHI 12, SPAZIO SOMMERSO" IS BORN
A cylinder with an exceptional diameter of 12 meters, 30 meters deep, filled with thermal water at 32/34° C.
Open to the sky, it can accommodate special large equipment dropped from above, but also unique exercises and simulations.
A zero emission work that will avoid the release of more than one thousand tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
“An underwater architecture that will give many opportunities and become a new tourist attraction. It’s the natural evolution of Y-40 in an open work able to inspire. An underwater space, Spazio Sommerso, open to the unpredictable, to the new, to the unexpected” – Arch. Emanuele Boaretto
May 2nd, 2013 is the date when the first stone was laid that began the story of Y-40 The Deep Joy and its entry into the Guinness World Record as the deepest pool in the world. May 2nd, 2023, ten years later, is the date when the thermal facility in Padova doubles.
Today is the day that the Boaretto family begins to work on the new underwater space that will flank Y-40 The Deep Joy, become a world reference point in architecture in these 10 years, in water activities and not only.
“Y-40 has always been open to diving and freediving, yet it has proved to be a great space for cross-cutting activities, allowing people to develop branches of research, training and art – explains architect Emanuele Boaretto, now back to work after designing the record pool. – Now it’s time to dedicate a further submerged space to all this, open to the unpredictable, to the new, to the unexpected, in an innovative architecture with a great tourist value”.
After the international success about underwater architecture with the opening of Divecube in Taiwan and other projects abroad, Boaretto is ready to start a new job in his country, in Italy: Phi 12.
“The project is about a new building at the foot of the Euganean Hills: a cylinder with an exceptional diameter of 12 meters, as never seen before in deep facilities. It will be built to the East of Y-40 within the park of the Hotel Terme Millepini. Phi 12 will reach 30 meters deep and will be filled using deep hyper-thermal salt-bromine-iodine water, between 32 and 34 ºC – reveals the architect Boaretto – These are all properties studied for specific technical reasons, highlighted by the needs emerged during the ten years of work in Y-40. Phi 12 will be its natural development and evolution.
It will be an open-air pool: this will allow to drop from above and accommodate special large equipment for the activities that will be developed. It will be an evolution of Y-40 that doubles the water space, giving greater emphasis to some of the many applications for which a similar basin has been useful in these first ten years”.
PHI 12, written Ф12, derives from the letter of the Greek alphabet. In mathematics is the symbol of the golden section, the first letter of the Greek name of the sculptor and architect Phidias, the first user of this proportion, but in architecture it also indicates the diameter, 12 meters of the cylinder, in this case.
PHI 12, THE SECOND MAJOR PROJECT IN ITALY BY THE ARCHITECT EMANUELE BOARETTO
THE BENEFITS: FROM UNDERWATER AND AEROSPACE MEDICINE TO EMERGENCY TRAINING
The reference is no just to water sports.
It will be a high-level scientific-technological laboratory, useful for medical – underwater and aerospace research, able to study the reactions of pressure changes on the human body, in partnership with universities around the world. A place available for research centres to immerse big size spacecraft, usable for testing in the absence of gravity.
It will be an international centre of education and training for non-profit organizations and research and recovery groups, in the confidentiality that special forces require for their tests. This facility will not have a roof, so it will be open to the sky and can accommodate simulations of sea rescuers, approaching water surface with flying vehicles, lowering from the sky.
Finally, it will be a studio for film productions with special effects, professional instrumentation and the possibility of recreating multiple scenarios for different requests and contexts, artistic or documentary. A context that can faithfully reproduce marine and naturalistic scenarios, sets adaptable to different aquatic realities, able to accommodate gigantic scenes.
“This new facility will be open to visitors who can discover it until the bottom, thanks to a transparent panoramic underwater lift that will allow you to follow the divers in the deep cylinder, living the touch down – explains the architect Boaretto – Thanks to the underwater glass that surrounds Phi 12 entirely at a depth of 5 meters, it will be possible to turn around the whole cylinder to watch entertainment and dance show performed in the water, as spectators of a real underwater theater. It will also be a big attractor of tourist flows as Y-40 has been in these first ten years of life”.
To confirm the touristic value are also the data on tourist presences issued by the Venetian Region, where the small town of Montegrotto Terme, after a long crisis began to have positive tourist percentages since 2014, the opening year of Y-40.
“We are so happy that this work has increased tourism, from accommodation to restaurants in the Euganean land all, repositioning our brand Terme. Now, a new and bigger tourist attraction will be created, in addition to the previous one that already welcomed more than 100,000 people every year, hundreds of school groups and visitors from almost 100 countries of the world, as some of the most popular monuments of Padua Urbs picta Unesco” says Boaretto.
ARCHITECTURE AS A TOURIST ATTRACTION: THE UNDERWATER THEATRE AND THE PANORAMIC LIFT
SUSTAINABILITY: MORE THAN ONE THOUSAND TONS OF CO2 NOT EMITTED THANKS TO GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
The facility, as the near hotel terme Millepini, will be eco-sustainable: it will not use water to drink, but will reuse only hot deep hyper-thermal salt-bromine-iodine water, with a filtration cycle that allows an efficient use without waste. The use of the thermal resource, not wasting drinking water, is useful to heat the entire facility. Pool, café bar, shop, offices and all the rooms will be kept in temperature thanks to geothermal energy, avoiding every year a production of over 1,000 tons of CO2 compared to a common gas heating for these volumes.
On the timing of the opening: the facility should be ready in about two years.
“Y-40 won the bet to create a benchmark for underwater architecture, with excellent attempts at imitation, standardizing the suitability of the pool, – says the architect Boaretto – But it is now time to give a new opportunity, that changes according to people’s lifestyle for efficiency and versatility, with a socially useful urban goal. An architectural project is always a place of memory, of a past bearing history and culture, which becomes a vision and an opening towards the future.
PHI 12 WILL BE AN OPEN WORK THAT INSPIRES“.
