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This supermassive hangar once housed gigantic airships ^[4], and now it has been given a second life as an indoor tropical resort that holds the world’s largest indoor pool and water park. Located in the countryside between Dresden and Berlin, the building was modified to bring in lots of sunlight and the huge doors were welded shut to keep in the heat — even during the snowy German winter. Inside, a small oceanside village gives visitors a tropical escape.

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The dome is the world’s largest freestanding building, and it was originally owned by a company attempting to develop a transport dirigible ^[6]. When that company went belly-up, a Malaysian company took the reins and created a year-round tropical paradise that maintains a lovely 79 degree Fahrenheit.

If you like big numbers, this project has some jaw droppers — the roof is 70,000 square meters, the indoor pool is the size of four Olympic sized pools, and the interior holds 5 million cubic feet of space. The building’s south side was stripped of its steel skin and replaced with a transparent film to let daylight ^[7] in. A small tropical forest ^[8] of 50,00 trees makes up one side complete with a 9 story tall water slide, fake villages, and even a mock shoreline that makes Las Vegas look modest.

This is a spectacular reuse of a unique building for a novel purpose in the heart of Europe, and we love the imagination it took. However we’re critical of the impact of plopping a tropical jungle in a place that will not see above freezing temperatures for weeks — there’s enough snow right now that you could ski home after you get your beach tan.

+ Tropical Islands ^[9]