Site 1 · Rotary Riverview Park hill
The Geode and the Scene
Cut a crystal into the hill. Put a free place to get in the water at the bottom, and a stone you can walk through on the lawn.
This is a proposal. It is an idea for Sheboygan, not a city plan or a decision.
The gist
Take the grassy hill at Rotary Riverview Park, with the blue-railed boardwalk at its foot and the Blue Harbor skyline across the water. Cut a crystal into it: a building of dark steel, honed stone and quartz, split open like a geode, with water falling through it. Put a huge sculpture on the lawn that people walk toward and photograph. Make the lowest floor free and always open, so anyone can walk in off the boardwalk and be in the water in two minutes.
Level by level
Water falls from the top, and people flow uphill. A stair and a ramp run through the heart of the building in a long “crystal spine” of light. Elevators serve every level.
- Water Floor (free, always open)A wide stone hall with a long shallow-to-deep pool, cold plunge basins, rinse showers and benches. It opens onto the boardwalk.
- Cold FallsLake water falls through carved stone channels into plunge basins. You can walk behind a sheet of water.
- ContrastHot and cold pools sit on either side of one thick stone wall, a few steps apart.
- Quiet HeatDark stone caverns with sauna and steam, warm amber light, heavy doors, silence.
- Zen Level (top)A glass-and-stone pavilion on the hilltop with mats, benches and the lake light. No screens, no music.
The route is a loop: enter low, go up through heat and contrast, finish quiet at the top, then walk down through the sculpture lawn into the park.
Water falling from the top can power its own flow and be pumped back up quietly at night. A building cut into a hill needs a drained, waterproofed retaining wall and a foundation set below frost. Glass in the Zen Level needs low-e coating and thermal breaks so it does not sweat or freeze.
Hot and cold, with the lake as the source
Deep lake water stays cold all year, so a screened intake brings cold up the hill. The glass roof collects solar heat for the upper pools, and a heat pump pulls leftover warmth from the lake water on its way in and hands it to the hot pools. No geothermal is needed.
Lake water alone cannot be hot, but it can be a good heat source for a heat pump. Sun is weakest in December, so there is an electric top-up. The river is silty, so building water would come from the lake side by pipe, then through filtration and disinfection.
The Scene: the Split Stone
A tall, open crystal sculpture, about 12 meters high, of polished stainless and quartz-faced panels. It is split down the middle so a person can walk into the gap and see the river and the far-bank skyline framed like a doorway. It stands on the lawn at the top of the boardwalk ramp, with a marked pad where the picture is best. At night it glows from inside, and a few stone fire bowls make the lawn a gathering place.
You see it from across the river, you walk toward it, you take the photo, then you walk down into the water. The Free Line stops here too.
An open, split form sheds wind, which matters on a lakefront hill. Footings go below frost, the steel is stainless, polished faces are angled so they do not throw glare across the river, and internal lighting is low-voltage LED.
Free public water
- Free to enter. No fee, no membership, no sign-up.
- Always open. Long hours, with winter hours the same as summer.
- Staffed and safe. An attendant desk, lifeguard coverage in deep water, posted time limits for cold and heat, an emergency call button in every wet room.
- Easy to keep clean. A rinse shower before entry, a nightly drain-and-clean cycle, and the day’s water quality posted at the door.
- City-owned and public. Run by the city or a nonprofit it names, under a charter that says the Water Floor stays free. The upper levels could have a small optional fee.
The beach next door stays what it is: a simple splash-in-the-water beach.
Not yet studied
Costs, permits, soils, the hill’s slope stability, and a flood and shoreline-zone check are all still to do. A soil boring and that check come first. This page is an idea to start the conversation.