Water tower

We do not design water towers every day. That is to say, not nowadays. When Patrik Ekenhill and his colleagues began working on the contribution to a parallel commission for Helsingborg’s new facility, they dug a little into the past. It turned out that Ivar Tengbom, around a hundred years ago, appears to have been something of a market leader in precisely this building type. Constructions of that era differ from the towers we have become accustomed to seeing in today’s cityscape. Before the functionalist mushroom profile made its entrance, water towers were generally square brick structures. One example is Ivar’s water tower in Sundbyberg, which to our eyes resembles a small fortress.

It turned out that Ivar Tengbom, around a hundred years ago, appears to have been something of a market leader in precisely this building type.

Looking back for balance

The team found inspiration in these older towers with their staircases and internal voids, even though the resulting form is radically different.

“The idea began to appeal to us, as we identified a major challenge in balancing the water reservoirs. According to the programme requirements, the new water tower would in fact contain a greater total water volume in the two low-level reservoirs than in the high-level reservoir. Yet the client still wanted a tower. That is where our idea was born: through a coherent and efficient facility, we could combine them into a single volume, loosely following this older principle,” explains Patrik Ekenhill.

The siting of the tower was also a challenge. The landscape is distinctive — a field bordered by a major road on one side and a nature reserve and apple orchards on the others.

“It creates a clear niche, a spatial room along the road. By placing it centrally in the middle of the field, we established a sense of monumentality while maintaining sensitivity towards the adjacent farmland. It also reinforces the impression of a freely placed landmark as an independent object, one of the typical characteristics of water towers,” he continues.

Flowing form

A water tower differs fundamentally from a residential or office building.

“We received very concrete input on the technical aspects. We chose to work with cylindrical tanks, but we wanted to wrap them in a contemporary envelope and create an atmosphere of something delicate and open,” says Patrik.

With perforated, shiny stainless steel sheeting, the tower gains a reflective surface that shifts with the weather. For inspiration for the form, we went to the source itself: the water.

“It is incredibly complex and multifaceted. The water reservoirs at the base form a triangle, while the high-level reservoir is a circle at the top. By following these geometries with the external skin, the outer form generated a transformative twist. The twist conveys a sense of dynamism and a gentle rotational experience — a dialogue between both traffic movements and the water flows within the reservoirs.”

Thanks to its twisted form, the tower changes character as one walks around it or approaches from different directions along the road.

Homely

A classic formal device, also seen for example in vases, notes Patrik Ekenhill. And the water tower sits a little like a vase on the yellow field. Grain is grown there, though the architects would gladly see it become a field of sunflowers. Owing to its twisted form, the tower changes appearance as one moves around it, or approaches from various directions. The tower is also illuminated from within, and in the evening becomes something of a gentle lampshade, possibly making passers-by long for the warmth of home and a glass of clean water.