The Katzensee area comprises a vast reed landscape with two small lakes. Extensive fen zones, smaller wet and dry areas, rare alder and birch forests provide a habitat for a diverse animal and plant community. The area is included in the inventory of landscapes of national importance. The bathing establishment, completed in 1967, was sensitively integrated into this existing nature reserve by Walter Frischknecht and designed in the spirit of the transition between modernism and the natural garden movement. The lakeside resort was perfectly integrated into the landscape and partly blended in with the natural surroundings of the lakeshore and forest. With its cultivated wildness and closeness to nature, it is unique in Zurich in this design consistency. Over the decades, a number of construction measures in response to functional needs have unfortunately obliterated many of these traces. For example, the lake shore, which was originally designed as a flat bank, was reinforced with various concrete steps. Instead of the once very skilful gradual dissolution of the forest, before the renovation a very clear edge between the forest front and the lakeside resort had beenestablished. One of the main aims of the renovation project is to bring the original ideas back to the fore and even strengthen them further by striking a balance between restoration and new, accentuating interventions. One of the most important measures in this respect is the flattening of the lake shore. In order to improve the ecological and landscape aesthetic quality of the lakeside resort, the non-natural, non-ecological shoreline obstructions have been removed, the shoreline has been designed in a near-natural way and a water exchange zone has been restored. Various newly placed boulders in the shore area are reminiscent of the principles of the natural garden movement.

The original character of the gradual dissolution of the forest has been restored through targeted replanting. The choice of trees and shrubs is based on the surrounding forest communities (sedge-black alder forest, weeping cherry-ash forest, woodruff-beech forest and mixed two-leaf ash forest). The selected trees and shrubs are exclusively native and appropriate to the location. Care has also been taken to ensure that there is a wide variety of species in the choice of trees and that the individual trees also have a large ecological amplitude. The wooded area to the south-east of the lakeside resort has been professionally maintained as part of the project and supplemented with new plantings in consultation with the arborist and forester. The forest has suffered from high utilisation pressure (cars, bicycles and visitors in general), particularly in the vicinity of the buildings. As a first step, diseased and weak trees have been removed. Furthermore, the diversity of species has been increased by replanting.

The ‘hard’ boundaries between the bathing area and the nature reserve between the project perimeter and the surrounding area have been softened by specific seeding and initial planting. They form a gentle transition with a buffer effect. They incorporate the typologies and plant species of the various neighbouring forest communities and function as networking corridors for small animals.

The project envisages an optimised and clearer distribution of uses or areas of use with their respective infrastructures. This should also help to better separate intensively from extensively utilised areas. The new distribution should also prevent visitors from ‘spilling over’ into the protected and valuable habitats in the surrounding area. The high-use areas such as the picnic zone, barbecue and play area will be merged in order to relieve the pressure on the sunbathing lawn and the rest of the facility, which will become significantly more spacious.

The paving between the buildings will be laid in chaussure without edging. Other edging and gutters will also be removed in order to anchor the facility more firmly to the forest floor and not interrupt the generous flow of space between the structures.

The tension between concrete and natural stone is thematised at various points in line with the natural garden movement. For example, a rounded cobble-stone paving with large stones is used as an inlay in the original tree pits. The paving for the showers is also designed in rounded cobble-stone paving in order to integrate sensitively into the riverbank landscape with the different formats of the riverbank stones.

The majority of the equipment in the area has been replaced due to its outdated condition. Each section has its own element. Barbecue grills, signs and a few play elements have been reused. The new furnishing elements such as benches, picnic groups and the benches in the barbecue area express the proximity to the forest, the context of the nature reserve and the history of the site as a contemporary witness to modernity with their design language and the contrast between geometric and natural edges.

The playground area is integrated into the natural, scenic context. Bouncy stones, a balancing path and a tree trunk path form a low, continuous playground landscape. It is not very high so as not to obstruct the views of the beautiful landscape of the lakeshore and fens. The play elements were obtained from the clearing work in the forest. One very special element is the balancing path made of an unusual poplar bark from the same forest. The spectacular morphology of the bark inspired us to develop a balancing path that was originally supposed to be made up of horizontally cut tree trunk rings. Unfortunately, the rings fell into pieces during cutting. On site, we spent several working days assembling the many individual pieces with the gardening company to create a play element designed to encourage people to hide, jump, balance, sit and much more.

Architecture offices involved in the design:
Gut&Schoep Architekten, Zürich, (restoration of the buildings)

Location: Katzenseestrasse 497, 8046 Zürich

Design year: 2020-2024

Year Completed:2024

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