A new indoor ice skating rink, in Ferlach, with an adjacent hotel has been in operation since 2021. It's so successful that it presented the operator with a challenge: Its capacity has already been significantly exceeded. Now, the operator is building a second all-season indoor skating rink, making Ferlach a hockey and ice sports Mecca.

The new indoor skating rink south of the HTC hockey arena in Ferlach will be open all year round, feature ten cabins that can be rented to teams as well as two large team cabins for national teams. Relaxation areas with saunas and pools will complement the offerings. The new indoor skating rink in Ferlach offers space for 400 spectators, 200 of which are seated, an additional refrigeration machine and another photovoltaics plant.

The building was designed as a solid timber structure by Ronacher Architects, will be executed by Lieb Bau Weiz and features a hall superstructure made from nine arched trusses. These trusses are made from glued laminated timber and were joined to a span of almost 40 m using roughly 6,000 kg of steel.

The striking structure was completely pre-fabricated at the HASSLACHER Group's site in Hermagor and delivered to the construction site in Ferlach as a completed element. Moreover, seven transports were needed for the roughly 350 m3 of cross laminated timber. The cross laminated timber in industrial visible quality was used in the newly constructed wing for wall and ceiling elements. An architectural connection between the existing and the new hall was inserted as a visual break to clearly separate the two halls from each other.