Wellness spaces

Cersaie Press Café
Fiorella Baserga, editor-in-chief of Suite, talks to Amy Goller Keller and Claudia Taiani

Amy Goller Keller is one of Italy’s top wellness consultants with a long career working for the country’s most prestigious spas and, since 2004, as a freelance consultant. Claudia Taiani is an architect who since 2015 has been working on the Aquardens project, a spa complex established in 2013 in Santa Lucia di Pescantina (VR), an area where surveys revealed the presence of saline-bromine-iodine water with high concentrations of sodium chloride, bromine and iodine, as well as calcium, magnesium and iron. Standing on a 40,000 square metre site, it is the largest spa complex in Italy and currently the second largest in Europe, although it is set to become the largest once the expansion project is completed. These two wellness sector experts were invited by Fiorella Baserga, editor-in-chief of Suite, the magazine that has been reporting on trends in the high-end hotel industry since 1989. Inevitably, the first topic of conversation was the pandemic, how it is affecting the approach to wellness and the ways in which development projects and the choice of materials for wet spaces in spas have changed. Amy Goller Keller discussed the benefits of thermal water treatments, an area of wisdom and culture that originated with the Ancient Romans who were well aware of the therapeutic properties of water. Amid the current pandemic, spa water’s capacity to boost the immune system is an aspect of great relevance. Moreover, alongside the physical benefits, spa therapy also strongly promotes mental wellbeing, as the warm water takes us back to the primordial concept of the placenta and instils a sensation of calm and well-being. In her talk, architect Claudia Taiani discussed aspects of sanitisation, the use of space and compliance with distancing rules, all factors that are influencing the use and economic performance of existing facilities. Through a series of practical examples, she described work carried out on existing buildings to replace flooring or finishes with materials with superior hygiene properties or, more specifically, to reorganise the bathroom and changing room spaces. The conversation was concluded with a presentation of future expansion projects.

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January 2021