Swimming in a bunker

Berndorf Bäderbau built extraordinary pool in Finland

Underneath a shopping center in a civilian air-raid shelter in Lempäälä, Finland, it will soon be possible to splash around cheerfully because Berndorf Bäderbau had been building a very special “indoor pool”, which can be used as shelter in an emergency, since 2022.

Lempäälä is located in the Southwest of Finland near the highway between Helsinki and Tampere. Although there are only around 24,500 inhabitants, it has one of the largest shopping centers in the entire Scandinavian region – the Ideapark. The shopping center has its own small “old town”, a go-cart track, and a children’s amusement park. Here, visitors can not only shop and enjoy themselves in the shopping world, but also go for a swim – because underneath the Ideapark, at a depth of 30 meters, six different pools await guests – from indoor pool to children’s paddling pool to whirlpool.

“The special thing about this project is that the pools are installed in a huge underground bunker that can be used as a bomb shelter for up to 5,000 people in case of emergency,” Karen Fanto, who leads the Division International Public-, Hotel- and Residential-Pools at Berndorf Bäderbau, tells us.

Four days for the tender

It was a long journey with many meetings in Finnish and numerous challenges before the pools could finally be successfully put into operation in 2024. “The first challenge for the sales and costing team was that the tender had to be submitted in merely four days without any detailed information,” Karen Fanto says.

High safety requirements

Once the tender was won, the sales team and project manager had to stay flexible in order to deal with the opaque and time-consuming decision-making processes. “The project challenged us on many different levels, not just with regard to technical aspects, but also in view of the safety requirements on the construction site. The successful insertion of the pool parts into the underground bunker was the result of precise internal planning and effective coordination with the construction manager on site,” says the division manager.

The effort paid off: In March 2024, the extensive documentation was reviewed and positively assessed by the Finish Occupational Health and Safety Authority. “Our thorough documentation of foreign reports as an Austrian company was praised and acknowledged,” Karen Fanto rejoices.

Teamwork

This project could only be realized successfully thanks to the effective cooperation of each individual department, as the manager reports: “At the beginning, the sales team, the internal sales department, and the costing department played a central role in the tender. Project management ensured adherence to the schedule. The internal construction team coordinated construction planning seamlessly, while multiple experienced construction teams assembled the stainless-steel pools in close cooperation with the customer. The whole specialist staff did an outstanding job, which was also explicitly highlighted by the customer during the on-site visit and contributed significantly to the project’s success.”