Monday 12 January 2009

Building Visit; Manchester Aquatics Centre

Providing Olympic standard facilities for swimming, synchronized swimming, diving and water polo, I decided to visit the Manchester Aquatic Centre not for its primary sporting functions, but more for the experience of an elite training centre and study the secondary supporting facilities such as the gyms and fitness studios. It was also interesting to see how visitors were dealt with upon arrival and how the supporting accommodation was organised in relation to the pool and diving areas.

 

The facility was purpose–built for the Commonwealth Games, costing £32 million to build. It is jointly owned by the Manchester City Council and the cities universities. The centre is the home of the City of Manchester Aquatics Swim Team, as well as Disability Swimming and Water Polo athletes within the English Institute of Sport. The building was designed by Faulkner Brown Architects and construction completed in September 2001.

 

The centre's facilities include:

  • Two 50 m pools, each able to be split into sections of varying dimensions and depths with the help of moveable floors and booms. In fact, the centre has the world's largest area of movable floors and booms in a swimming facility.
  • "Main pool" on the ground floor is 50 m by 25 m with a maximum depth of 2 m. Two sunken booms and two moveable floor sections can separate the pool into a 23 m by 20 m with constant depth between floor level and 2 m depth; and a 25 m by 20 m section at 2 m depth, which in turn can be separated by the second sunken boom to allow a section of 10 m by 20 m with varying depth. 1,000 permanent spectator seats overlook the main pool hall.
  • "Training pool" is located in the basement and is 16 m by 50 m in size, with a constant depth of 1.8 m. A traversable boom allows separation into two 25 m length pools, one of which can be varied in depth from floor level to 1.8 m. The training pool's ceiling is in the shape of two long waves representing waves on water.
  • 25 m diving pool with movable floor to allow a maximum depth of 5.1 m. The pool is often also used for water polo, and scuba diving training.
  • Leisure pool - a shallow water area suitable for younger pool users, with two water slides.
  • Workout and fitness studios, a health suite including sauna, steam rooms, and sun beds
  •  Poolside cafĂ©.

 

I found the building to be well organised, with the different facilities well located to allow ease of movement between the varying functions it accommodates. In particular circulation running along side the pool viewing area connected to the gym and fitness suites created an interesting connection between the training and competition areas, as if users of the building were being reminded what their efforts in training were leading toward. 








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