Elmo swimming hall to be the largest in Vantaa – new wood construction in Asola

The Elmo swimming hall is being built in the Elmo sports park between Asola, Korso and Koivukylä. The Elmo sports park is this decade's largest sports-related project in Vantaa, and the swimming hall currently being built will be the sports park’s first sports facility. 

The Elmo swimming hall will open in 2027.

The swimming hall will be the largest in Vantaa, as well as one of the largest in Finland. Different user groups, such as families with children, have been thoroughly taken into account in the planning of the hall.

The main pool can be divided into two parts 

The Elmo swimming hall will be an excellent place to practice different water sports. The swimming hall will have a 50-meter main pool with ten swim lanes. 

The main pool can be divided into two with a pool divider, which will diversify the uses of the pool and provide enough space for water jogging and swimming instruction.

The hall will also have a diving pool, aquatic therapy pool and cold pool, as well as a wading pool, children's pool and separate teaching pool.  The diving pool will offer a place to practice diving, underwater rugby and synchronized swimming.

A swimming hall and water slide for the whole family  

The hall will feature the first water slide of Vantaa’s swimming halls. Including the pool at the end, the water slide will be 55 meters long. 

Swimming instruction at Elmo will take place in a separate teaching pool. This will allow for more teaching groups in the teaching pool, while the children’s pool and wading pool will be freely available to families with children during teaching as well. The teaching and aquatic therapy pools will be separated from the other parts of the pool area with glass walls, which will make the space calmer during instruction and improve acoustics. 

There will be a screen for virtual swimming instruction at the teaching pool. The aquatic therapy pool will have a screen for water aerobics. 

The pool area, changing rooms, ticket sales and café will be located on the swimming hall’s pool floor. Visitors will enter the three-story building from the ground floor and move to the upper floors using the elevator or the stairs. The top floor will have a fitness center and group exercise space, along with their changing rooms. 

The accessible building serves everyone 

A lot of attention has been paid to different user groups in the planning of the Elmo swimming hall, and the facilities will be made very accessible.

The building will have separate sauna sections for those who need barrier-free access. This means accessible saunas, showers and changing rooms for men and women, changing rooms for assistants, and accessible toilets. The changing rooms are on the same floor as the pools. 

The swimming hall’s accessible changing rooms will be located in such a way that the distance from the changing and shower rooms to the aquatic therapy pool is as short as possible.The pool area will have pathways marked with special tiles for the visually impaired.

The pool section will have a mobile pool lift that wheelchair users and rehabilitees, among others, can use to safely get into and out of the pool.

All corridors will have enough room for using a wheelchair, for example.

In addition, the building will have a separate space reserved for the guide dogs of visually impaired visitors, where the dogs can wait while their owners are swimming. 

Wood on the facade and indoors 

The City of Vantaa is committed to promoting wood construction in the long term. Solid wood structures have been used to a significant extent in the construction of the Elmo swimming hall as well. 

Wood is used in, among other places, the facades, walls, roofs and parts of the frame structures. Wood structures are a good fit for a swimming hall, as the indoor humidity and temperature are kept stable. 

In addition to humidity control, acoustic planning is key for a swimming hall. To ensure pleasant acoustics, the gaps between the ceiling and wall beams are not left as hard wood surfaces. Instead, they are covered with wooden slat panels. 

At the Elmo swimming hall, a wooden frame has been combined with steel and concrete structures. The materials have been selected with sustainability, comfort and life cycle in mind.  

All in all, the goal is a long-lasting, healthy and safe building that is able to serve many Vantaa residents in the best possible way. A wide range of experts have been involved in the planning.  Particular attention has been paid to making the structures durable and easy to maintain.  

For example, the main pool and other pools are being built using steel for the sake of durability; steel pools are easy to maintain and, when properly cared for, they last a long time. 

An energy-efficient swimming hall building  

The swimming hall building will be energy efficient, and it will utilize renewable energy. The heat of the shower water will be recovered. Geothermal technology will be efficiently utilized for both heating and cooling. 52 geothermal wells have been drilled at the parking lot, with a total length of nearly 18 kilometers.  These wells will be able to cover over 60 percent of the building’s annual heating energy needs. 

The swimming hall’s energy-recycling system is prepared to utilize condensate energy derived from the ice rink and outdoor artificial ice rink that will be built next to the swimming hall at a later stage. 

The water of the pools continuously circulates through the water treatment system, and some of the water and the water’s heat can be recovered for further use. 

Roughly 500 solar panels will be installed on the roof of the building. The panels are estimated to cover about 10 percent of the building’s annual electricity needs. 

Part of the roof will be green in order to decelerate rain-water strain. 

The services of Korso and Koivukylä will improve 

The Elmo swimming hall is estimated to receive 300,000–350,000 visitors per year. The swimming hall will serve all residents of Vantaa. 

The hall will especially improve the swimming hall services of the residents of the Korso and Koivukylä major regions, as these residents are currently only served by the small Korso swimming hall. The Korso swimming hall will close when the Elmo swimming hall opens. 

Visitors from elsewhere in Vantaa and the surrounding municipalities are also expected at Elmo swimming hall.  

Elmo swimming hall is located along Asolanväylä. It can be easily reached by car and public transport. The Rekola train station is near Elmo. 

Diverse local sports services are planned for the roughly 18-hectare area of Elmo sports park, from ball games to ice skating and fitness. 

The article’s videos and interviews were recorded in June 2026.