Client
Finn Lough Spa
Year
2022
Services
BusinessesThe Concept
We are currently engaged in a phased expansion of the existing luxury hideaway resort on the shore of Lough Erne in Ireland’s ‘lake county’ of Fermanagh. As design partners, we have reimagined and developed a vision for the masterplan of the resort, sensitively developing its accommodation within the woodland setting on the shores of the lake.
This project is a new spa village in the heart of the resort. Key spaces consist of loughshore hot tubs, a central courtyard, a secret garden and a large dome pool, the exoskeleton of which was designed by others, for horticultural use, prior to our appointment.
The central courtyard is the arrival point, around which the reception, changing rooms and refreshment station are oriented. The courtyard is conceived as a rain garden with external covered circulation. This is Ireland: it’s going to rain, so we chose to celebrate that with oversized drains that will direct rain into concrete-formed pools that flow into one another and down to a pond with a plunge pool.
We have reconceived the existing large geodesic dome as a spa pool, surrounded by planting and relaxation space, while the secret garden contains treatment rooms accessed by a meandering boardwalk. On the loughshore, private hot tubs in spiralled enclosures are starting to come together on-site.
The materiality of the new buildings include blackened timber and rusting corrugated metal on lightweight prefabricated timber frame structures, and they are currently under construction.
