Swedish hotel floats on SF Marina pontoons
When most people think about a building’s foundation, they think reinforced concrete. And with Slottsholmen, a two-story, 33-room hotel on the picturesque town of Västervik, Sweden, they wouldn’t be wrong. Except, instead of being set into bedrock, this structure is actually floating on a custom-engineered pontoon platform from SF Marina.
The owners of Slottsholmen—among whom includes Björn Ulvaeus, member of the Swedish musical group ABBA—chose the Swedish architectural firm of Sandell Sandberg to design the floating hotel. Knowing that the structure would need a solid foundation that provided unprecedented stability and reliability, contractor 2A Entreprenad enlisted SF Marina to deliver the concrete pontoon as the building’s foundation.
Measuring 22m W x 63m L, the floating platform consists of eight SF Marina SF1880-22m pontoons. Custom reinforcements accommodate the pressure points produced by the building’s mass. Each pontoon has an expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam core for remarkable buoyancy; they’re virtually unsinkable, even when holed. Practically maintenance-free, embedded conduits provide room for utility service.
The Slottsholmen platform was built at SF Marina’s Wallhamn, Sweden, location and transported by ship to an assembly site. Once the hotel was built on top of it and a weather window opened up, the completed structure was towed to its final location and moored. The entire process, from order to assembly, took less than a year.
”After Salt & Sill in Bohuslän, Sweden, Slottsholmen is our second floating hotel,” said Michael Sigvardsson, SF Marina CEO. ”With a low profile and minimal interference from water flow, the SF Marina concrete pontoons provide a solid, stable platform for this exceptionally distinctive hotel. We’re very proud to be part of such a unique project.”
Slottsholmen is many things. It’s a floating hotel with 33 superior rooms and 10 suites. A restaurant turns local produce into fabulous cuisine. Its spa is inspired by ancient Roman bath rituals. And the marina in the middle of town is but a stone’s throw away from the archipelago. It’s geothermally heated, electrified by solar cells and the water comes from its own desalination plant. Slottsholmen is truly striving to be a landmark for sustainability. For more information, visit www.slottsholmen.com.
