Episode #20: Sportzentrum Kerenzerberg in Zurich from ABB's video series Frozen Music

Sporting participation in Zurich has been growing steadily. More than half of people today spend at least three hours a week exercising. It was easy to see that the 50-year-old Sportzentrum Kerenzerberg needed to be upgraded significantly to stay attractive to the demanding crowd of Swiss athletes.

Burkhard Meyer Architekten BSA won the competition for the rebirth of the Sportzentrum, which was launched in the canton of Zurich in 2015. Their solution for the Sportzentrum was that instead of extending everything, it would be tightly tied together to be more convenient, more coherent, and cleverly interconnected. Now, the new twin centrepieces, a triple sports hall and a nine-storey accommodation block, are giving the new layout a focal point.

A curved staircase leads to the basement, where a well-lit hallway, the so-called "underworld", connects the new and old spaces. All the indoor facilities, including the swimming pool, sauna, gymnasium, strength training, theory rooms, hotel, and restaurant, can be reached from here. Burkard Meyer brought order to the chaos.

The sports centre is also streamlined through automation. Conditions in the numerous rooms are viewed and managed remotely. Windows closed or opened; blinds, lights, heating, or ventilation adjusted; air quality guaranteed; comfort and efficiency enhanced; and emissions radically reduced. ABB i-bus KNX solutions enable this, with hundreds of devices optimising energy flows while integrating seamlessly with the Oracle hotel management software. The complete installation was so impressive, it received the 2022 Global KNX People’s Choice Award.

Take a look and dive into this Sportzentrum, located in a scenery that is second to none.

“Our greatest wish for the sports centre Kerenzerberg was to make the place fit for the coming decades,” says Oliver Dufner, Partner of Burkard Meyer Architekten BSA, Baden, Switzerland.