About Us · Our Founder
The Innovator's Dream
The story behind the founding of Crystal Lagoons is an inspiring one.
Founder Fernando Fischmann overcame significant challenges to invent and patent the breakthrough technology that made large-scale, sustainable crystalline lagoons possible. His rapid success in scaling the company globally has turned his journey into a renowned case study at top business schools around the world, including MIT, Harvard, Wharton and London Business School.
Chapter 01
The Challenge
Fernando Fischmann dreamed of creating a tropical beach experience at San Alfonso del Mar, his real estate development in Algarrobo, Chile. At its heart would be a stunning 20-acre crystalline lagoon — but traditional pool technologies made this vision impossible. He consulted leading companies across Europe, Australia and the United States, and was consistently told that the technology he envisioned did not exist and could not be developed.
Conventional pools — the equivalent of
maintaining San Alfonso del Mar
20 acres
(8 hectares) lagoon
250,000m³
(66 million gallons) of water
6,000
filters and doses of chlorine required
With conventional technology, the project meant unsustainable costs, massive energy consumption and permanent maintenance issues — it was deemed economically unfeasible.
Chapter 02
The Solution
A trained biochemist, Fernando refused to accept that his dream was impossible. He built his own research laboratory and, after years of experimentation, created the patented Crystal Lagoons® technology — making large-scale crystalline lagoons sustainable and economically viable for the first time, using a fraction of the chemicals, energy and water of conventional systems.
The first lagoon at San Alfonso del Mar transformed not only the project, but the concept of waterfront living itself.
400 → 1,400
units sold after the lagoon
2x
Guinnes
Chapter 03
Founding Crystal Lagoons
“Selling intelligence” — a disruptive licensing model born from one lagoon.
The world’s first project using this technology earned the title of the most successful second-home resort in the Southern Hemisphere, and its Guinness World Record marked a turning point: Fernando established Crystal Lagoons to commercialize his patented technology globally. Under his “selling intelligence” model, the company partners with or licenses its technology to developers, providing architectural designs, engineering specifications, custom-manufactured equipment, construction supervision, permanent telemetric monitoring and operational oversight. Today Crystal Lagoons participates in more than 1,000 projects across 60 countries, backed by 2,200+ patents in over 135 countries.
Chapter 04
The New Revolution
After transforming the real estate industry, Crystal Lagoons is now changing urban life through its Public Access Lagoons® model — crystalline lagoons surrounded by white sandy beaches, open to the public through ticketed entry. Much like the English architect who brought small forests into 19th-century London and created the urban park, PAL® projects bring the ocean into the heart of the city — with 800 projects already under this model worldwide.
Chapter 05
The New Era: Small lagoons by Crystal Lagoons
Making traditional swimming pools obsolete.
Small Lagoons by Crystal Lagoons™ is revolutionizing the commercial swimming pool market. This innovative, patented concept and technology offers real estate and hospitality developers a way to bring a unique, idyllic beach-life experience to their projects — at a fraction of the construction and energy costs of traditional pools. With models ranging from 5,400 sq ft to 1 acre (500 m² to 4,000 m²), Small Lagoons deliver a far superior guest experience while cutting build-out and maintenance expenses dramatically, rendering conventional commercial swimming pools obsolete.
TODAY
An inventor whose work now reaches far beyond water
Fernando Fischmann lives in the United States, fully dedicated to inventing and developing new technologies. Alongside Crystal Lagoons’ expansion, he has built a patent portfolio spanning water, energy, artificial intelligence, medicine and logistics — including the camera-to-AI interface, the patented architecture that connects device cameras directly to artificial intelligence platforms, on which the next era of visual AI is being built.
The patented interface connecting device cameras directly to AI platforms — foundational to the future of visual AI.
Fresh water from industrial waste heat, without additional energy, addressing global water scarcity.
Lagoon-based cooling for AI data centers, cutting cooling energy by up to 40% while repurposing waste heat.
Patented inventions in targeted cancer therapy and electric-aviation e-commerce logistics systems.