Yellow Submarine
A twelve-metre submarine moored in a pine forest, a step away from the Poreč shoreline
A five-star resort asks a question that is rarely asked
Valamar Pical Resort opened in 2026. In a setting like that, every element is set to a standard in advance: the architecture, the landscape, the restaurants, the beach.
The question they put to us was a simple one. Can a children’s playground hold that standard and still be a playground?
The answer required the space to earn an identity of its own. Something a guest remembers and talks about once they are home, the same way they talk about the view from the terrace.
A submarine that dived too far and surfaced in a pine forest
The centrepiece of the project is a submarine: twelve metres long, nine metres wide, six metres high. The scale is deliberate. A smaller form would have been a piece of equipment, while this one is a landmark, visible from the promenade and from the hotel terraces.
An underwater world has been built around it. The stone labyrinth is made of laminated timber, surface-finished to read as stone, and beside it stand vertical columns in turquoise, blue and yellow, which recall seagrass. A sand zone with propeller-shaped benches closes the circuit.
Children who walk into that space no longer need the sea. They are already in it before they get to the beach.
Seven hundred square metres with no prescribed route
The layout does not follow the usual split into a zone for younger children and a zone for older ones. There are no signs and no suggested direction. There is a flow the child discovers by moving: from the quiet entrance zone with the swings, through an increasingly dense centre, up to the top of the submarine, from where the stainless steel slide leads back down.
Every transition is designed as a discovery. The columns filter the view and reveal the next element only close up, while the labyrinth keeps its interior for whoever steps inside. The slide becomes visible only from the top.
The pines on the site were kept, and the layout was worked around them. That constrained the plan, but it gave the playground shade, which is no small matter on this coast in summer.
Six elements, one underwater world
The submarine, 12 metres
A load-bearing steel structure clad in yellow timber slats. Inside the hull: platforms, climbing elements and the exit onto the slide. A stainless steel periscope port at the bow.
The stone labyrinth
Curved walls in laminated timber, surface-finished to read as stone. Hidden passages, nooks to hide in and small portholes for children to peer through.
Colour columns
Vertical columns in turquoise, blue and yellow. They mark the space, guide movement and change appearance with the position of the sun.
The stainless steel slide
A closed tube running from the top of the submarine down to ground level. The only fast descent from height and the closing point of the whole circuit.
The control panel
Interactive elements inside the hull: moving discs, portholes and motifs of underwater life pressed into the material. The REDOX mark is built into the panel itself.
The sand zone
A quiet area with propeller-shaped benches around a newly planted tree, for younger children and for parents who stay in the shade.
A space that does not explain itself, it asks to be discovered
Motor development
Climbing, crawling, balancing and sliding engage different muscle groups and build coordination without a single written instruction.
Cognitive and emotional development
Hidden passages and portholes ask the child to anticipate, choose and weigh up risk. Every visit reveals something the child did not notice last time.
Social development across age groups
The space has no single centre, and therefore no single group that claims it. Zones of different intensity let a younger and an older child use the same space at the same time.
Sense of place
Every motif points to the Istrian coast: the sea, the pines, the stone, the colours of the water. The child plays at Pical, in a place that has a name and a story.
A structure that has to survive salt, sun and a full season
The load-bearing structure is steel; the cladding is timber. The combination was chosen for the location: the playground stands a step away from the shore, exposed to salt and sun, and is in use without a break right through the tourist season.
The steel carries the load and holds the geometry of the hull. The timber gives warmth and stands up to daily handling. The elements exposed to the heaviest wear, the slide and the periscope port, are made in stainless steel.
All play equipment on the site is certified by TÜV. For an investor in hospitality that is a condition, not a formality. Responsibility for guest safety stays with the property, and certification by an independent third party is the evidence that the equipment was tested against the applicable standard.
The lighting was built into the hull as early as the fabrication stage. That is why the submarine reads at night as an installation in its own right, lit from within.
“A playground in a five-star resort is not measured by how long it lasts, but by whether the child comes back the next day.”
Part of the resort, not an addition to it
Yellow Submarine was designed and built as part of the same space, held to the same requirements for materials, detail and durability as everything else at Valamar Pical Resort.
For the investor that means a feature that works all season and that guests photograph without being asked to. For the child it means 700 square metres where nobody tells them what to do.
It opened in June 2026, together with the resort.
Ready to shape space together?
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