Swimming Technique October - December 2002 Feature Article

NEW SPACES FOR OLD PLACES
Addition by Design

By Michael J. Stott

I had two brothers-in-law go to MIT. Both could swim, but the one we call "Top-of-the-Line Jim" failed to graduate, in part, because he refused to take the Institute's swim test. That was back in the early '70s when principle and petulance stood for something.

Today people kill for water time. And in 2002 in Cambridge, change is in the air. And it's the kind of change that Cyndi Lauper sang about so freely_the kind that changes everything. At the Institute, that would be big change, as in the $20 million that Al and Barrie Zesiger contributed as a part of $54 million in alumni donations that built a 110,000-square foot sports and fitness center.

The center's crown jewels, built after overcoming severe spatial and soil condition issues and around which almost everything revolves, are two swimming pools. Assistant athletic director and former swimming and water polo coach, John Benedick, did intense legwork for the Institute, visiting more than 20 facilities in preparation for design phase discussions.

His mantra is: "Programming prior to any design is key to building any facility. That's a discipline to which I think anybody who is going to build a project should enter." To that end, he programmed every hour of every day, 24/365, to demonstrate to doubters what the cost/benefits were and what subtraction of facility components meant to the Institute in terms of vertical programming. "It made a significant difference in demonstrating in very clear terms what cuts meant," he says. Now he has what he calls "the best pool in the country_for what we do."

Preplanning was critical to all of Swimming Technique's other four featured pools. Two private schools, St. Catherine's in Richmond, Va., and Hotchkiss in Lakeville, Conn., conquered the challenge of integrating imposing fitness centers (and pools) into limited space and existing Georgian architecture. Both schools' projects were designed and engineered by Ellerbe-Becket (Washington, D.C.) and Counsilman/Hunsaker (St. Louis). Both were also "in desperate need of updating their athletic buildings. They'd done a great job on the academic side," says Ellerbe-Becket's Margaret Flinner. "It's the athletics that always get left to the end." No more.

On the West coast, the Santa Monica Swim Center opened in July to rave reviews, replacing a public pool built in 1951, which was eventually closed down in 2000 after being "patched up" following the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Finally, after several years of municipal machinations and a construction false start, the 50-meter gem has an eager following, including competitive and college users. The end result is an extremely attractive, user-friendly facility sandwiched between a main thoroughfare, parking decks and a college administration building.

In a galaxy far away, at the Hickory, N.C., YMCA, resides the shining Millholland Aquatic Center, featuring a 25-yard, eight-lane indoor pool that is home to three competitive swim teams, and a public that has embraced this complement to a 41-year-old, 50-meter outdoor pool. The recent addition of a kiddie shallow-water park, two 25-foot-high tubular water slides and 9,000 feet of expanded deck space have the locals feeling awfully good about the place where many of them first learned to swim.

Then there's my brother-in-law, Jim. Years later, he condescended to take the swim test_and passed. He still lives in the Boston area. And, as smart as he is and as much as he loves living in luxury, I bet even he'd take a dip in one of this year's profiled pools.

Santa Monica Swim Center
Santa Monica, California

"Response has been unbelievable. We have hundreds of people, including families, who come through here for the day," says Clark Dikeman, referring to the July opening of the Santa Monica Swim Center. The state-of-the art facility contains a 50-meter by 25-yard, eight-lane pool and an 80-foot by 75-foot, 10-lane instructional and recreational pool. These additions replace a smaller 33-meter job and adjacent 35-by-60-foot diving well built in 1951 that was damaged by the 1994 Northridge earthquake and ultimately closed in 2000.

The project was made possible, in part, by a 48-year continuing partnership between the city of Santa Monica_which built, owns, runs and maintains the facility_and Santa Monica College on whose property the complex resides. "Land in an urban environment (Santa Monica is located by the Pacific Ocean just west of Los Angeles) is extremely expensive, so we opted to put as much water as we could into a small footprint," says Dikeman, Santa Monica Aquatics principal supervisor. Every available square foot of the site, which is surrounded by parking garages, the college's business department and a local street, was put to use. Pool equipment was placed underground.

A sophisticated financial agreement allows the city during the school year to operate the pool from 5:30 to 8 a.m. and from 4 to 8:30 p.m. while the college fills the midday hours with swim team, recreational and classroom activities. The pool will also be available to physical education classes for nearby John Adams Middle School as well as private agencies offering scuba lessons and other water-related classes. During 10 weeks in the summer, the City of Santa Monica operates the pool from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. for community aquatics programs.

Primary competitive tenants are the college team, a novice city squad of 50 to 60 children, a USS-based Team Santa Monica and the 300-member Southern California Aquatics (SCAQ) Masters program. Says Charlie Wright, SMC's director of athletics: "I think the new facility will have an outstanding impact on our teams. We now have the ability to offer a first-class pool that is going to be unmatched in community college swimming ranks"_this from a program with an already outstanding aquatic history that lays at least partial claim to three-time Olympic gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg.

On a more plebeian level, Dikeman envisions more than 2,000 visitors per day by next summer. And why not? He offers one 3- and one 1-meter diving boards, three lap swimming lanes at all times, a splash pool for kids and a stunning palm tree setting surrounded by a spectacular blue tile wall (also a sound barrier), a community meeting room and a 380-square foot sun deck.

Talk about aquatic heaven!

Owner: City of Santa Monica
Center Architects: Killerser Flammang Architects, Santa Monica, Calif.
Pool Designer: Rowley International, Palos Verdes, Calif.
Center Contractors: Swinerton Builders, San Francisco, Calif.
Construction Manager: DMR Team, Culver City, Calif.
Dimensions: Competition pool is 50 meters by 8 lanes; instructional pool is 80-by-75 feet, 10 lanes
Cost: $8 million
Funded By: $4 million by City of Santa Monica, $2 million by FEMA, $2 million by Community Development Block Grants
Amenities: Sophisticated non-turbulent gutter system, showers, locker rooms and office space. Though thoroughly urban, designers used glass portholes to make the pools visible from the street, and colorful blue tile to highlight facility interior

Millholland Aquatic Center
Hickory, North Carolina

This is a critical moment for the USOC, as well as for the (men's) collegiate sports that have been brutally impacted in the past 30 years.

The Millholland Aquatic Center at the Hickory Foundation YMCA may be the biggest thing to hit town since NASCAR legend Ned Jarrett ruled the local speedway. For sure, it is the best swimming complex within a 35-mile radius.

Completed in November 2000, Millholland is an eight-lane, 25-yard indoor jewel that complements an existing 50-meter, eight-lane outdoor pool. With a lane width of eight feet, "the new indoor pool offers us a chance to give a full complement of aquatic activities," says Ginny Brewer, director of membership and marketing.

It also provides a home for three area swim teams: the 60-member YMCA Seahorse squad and the smaller Hickory and Fred T. Foard high school teams.

The facility has no diving boards, but sports an eight-lane Colorado Time Systems scoreboard and an on-deck whirlpool and dry sauna. Water depth in the competition pool runs from three-and-a-half to eight feet. Deck space is sizable, and there are four locker rooms to accommodate men, women, boys and girls.

Last year the Y began upgrading its outdoor pool, built prior to 1960, by adding a 10-by-15-foot kiddie shallow-water park complete with water sprouting mushrooms and dump buckets. This season the Y added two 25-foot-high tubular water slides that empty into the deep end, and it expanded its deck space by 9,000 square feet.

"These additions have been very popular," says Brewer, "and has helped us attract new members and keep the old ones happy."

Owner: Hickory Foundation YMCA
General Contractor: Moss-Marlow Building Company, Inc., Hickory, N.C.
Pool Contractor: Southern Pools, Huntersville, N.C.
Dimensions: Indoor (8 lanes by 25 yards), outdoor (8 lanes by 50 meters), deck space of 12,000 sq. ft.
Cost: Indoor pool, $1.3 million. Water park, $156,000. Water slide, $36,000
Funded By: Indoor pool_capital pledges. Water park_capital pledges and debt service. Water slide_operating surplus

The Hotchkiss School
Lakeville, Connecticut

Duke Kahanamoku aside, the real nascence of American swimming can be traced to New England prep schools. One, with an extremely proud tradition, is the Hotchkiss School. Founded in 1891, the school once employed the legendary Delaney Kiphuth (pre-Yale) and occasionally hosted 1964 Olympian Don Schollander. Fast forward to the present day.

Currently Hotchkiss is in the midst of the biggest building program in school history. At $28 million and 210,000 square feet, the Hotchkiss Athletic and Fitness Center, which opened in September, houses a unique new wave pool known as a "stretch 25." At 121 feet long and 75 feet wide, the pool has a movable bulkhead that permits multiple training permutations and concurrent diving.

The new structure replaces an unattractive, functional and failing dinosaur. "It was time," says athletic director Rick Delprete. "The old facility was built for a single sex school of 300 kids. Today we are a coed school of 550 with enlarged faculty and administration."

Architecturally, it is a masterpiece. "It's a modern building that blends in with the campus' Georgian architecture," says Margaret Flinner of Washington, D.C.-based Ellerbe-Becket. The pool itself occupies a large portion of the complex which nestles nicely into a campus hill, thus visually reducing overall scale. Internally, side illumination augments a huge skylight that provides oodles of natural light.

Hotchkiss has potential users ready and waiting. For those on campus, the new natatorium means practice will be over by dinner. It will also accommodate the school's expanded aquatic programs that include men and women's swimming, diving and water polo as well as scuba.

Externally, "having the pool will allow us to expand our offerings," says Delprete, not only to local recreational swimmers but also to present organizations such as Housatonic Valley Regional High School team and a potential Northwest Corner swim team (Lakeville borders both Massachusetts and New York).

But for the moment, Hotchkiss revels in a gem of a complex that blends contextually with its architectural roots and portends renewed aquatic glory.

"This new facility is a tremendous addition," understates Delprete. "I hope it will put us back in the forefront of New England swimming."

No doubt it will.

Owner: The Hotchkiss School
Architects: Ellerbe-Becket, Washington, D.C.
Design Engineer: Counsilman/Hunsaker & Associates, St. Louis, Mo.
Construction Firm: O&G Industries, Inc., Torrington, Conn.
Pool Contractor: Scott Swimming Pools, Inc., Woodbury, Conn.
Project Manager: Bob Ives, Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Conn.
Size: "Stretch 25" is 121 feet long and 75 feet wide with one movable bulkhead
Cost of Project: Pool is $2.5 million; tank cost is $800,000. Whole sports and recreation center is part of $28 million (hard cost) effort, largest in school history
Funding: Combination of gifts and tax-exempt bond
Major Facility Components: "Stretch 25" permits 10 training lanes and concurrent diving well in 14-foot deep end. With bulkhead in water, depth runs 4-7 feet. Pool has 16 cross lanes, each 7 feet wide
Also in Complex: Two indoor hockey rinks, three basketball courts, eight international squash courts, a main gym, a wrestling room, 3,600-sq. ft. fitness and training room, two-level locker rooms for 600 students, locker rooms for faculty and administration, cage area, conference rooms, etc.

St. Catherine's Sports and Fitness Center
Richmond, Virginia

"The new Sports and Fitness Center is not just for athletes, but for poets, dreamers, kayakers and dancers," says St. Catherine's School fund-raiser, Jil Harris. Created as a part of a broad-based educational vision, the 70,000-square foot facility will go a long way toward fulfilling the St. Catherine's mission of developing girls intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically.

To be opened in March 2003, the complex completes the original Georgian architecture campus plan of a central campus surrounded by school buildings. The hope is it will become a campus gathering place for the 800 girls, K through 12th grade, who attend the 112-year-old Episcopal day and boarding school.

"We think the pool will add significantly to boarder activities and opportunities," says athletic director Julie Dayton. That will be good news for the St. Catherine's girls' swim team which finished sixth in the 2002 private school championship_without the benefit of a home pool.

The Sports and Fitness Center is also the result of outstanding planning, given the logistical obstacles and the dearth of on-campus building space. It also brings to fruition long-held hopes for a physical education plant that will energize students and faculty and inculcate a culture of living healthy, balanced lives.

Community user groups are already queuing up for precious pool time. And why not? When finished, the aquatic component will stand as the most attractive in town and, perhaps, surpass those of private school state champions Woodberry Forest and The Madeira School. A brother school, St. Christopher's, will probably get first pick of remaining pool time, but that aside, the presence of a new jewel pool in Richmond will benefit most everyone in this Mid-Atlantic aquatic mecca.

Owner: Church Schools in the Diocese of Virginia
Architects: Ellerbe-Becket, Washington, D.C.
Project Managers: Brailsford & Dunlavey, Washington, D.C.
Pool Contractor: Aquatic Designs, Climax, N.C.
Pool Engineer: Counsilman/Hunsaker & Associates, St. Louis, Mo.
Project Engineer: Lanna Dunlap Spriggs/Telesis, Richmond, Va.
General Contractor: Kjellstrom and Lee, Richmond, Va.
Total Sq. Ft.: 70,000. Footprint of pool is 77 by 105 feet, which is 8,085 sq. ft.
Cost of Project: $16.7 million (pool_$3 million)
Funding: Capital campaign
Major Facility Components: 3-court gymnasium with suspended fitness track above, 7 locker rooms, 4000 sq. ft. of weights and fitness, classroom, multipurpose room/gym, administrative suite, sports medicine facility, 8-lane, 25-yard pool with two 1-meter boards, building and program storage, lobby area, equipment issue area
Pool Specs: HVAC Pool Pak system. Scoring/timing: Colorado Time Systems. Pool depth: 4 to 12 feet. Decking: 15 feet at lanes' end, 10 feet and 11 feet on two sides. Lanes: 7-foot-wide lanes, 8 lanes by 25 yards long. Seating: 150 spectators above deck level

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Beginning this fall, prospective students may be forgiven for wanting to attend MIT, not for an engineering education, but for access to the school's new natatorium. Dedicated Oct. 4, the complex is part of the $54 million Al and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center being constructed on the campus central core.

Visually, the interior is stunning with much of the 110,000-square foot addition wrapping itself around two new pools and featuring a four-story drop from rooftop to a tile-wrapped deck. One pool is a 50-meter by 25-yard deep-water tank with one movable bulkhead. There are eight lanes, each nine feet wide. The configuration permits 18 short course lanes (eight feet wide) and allows concurrent diving practice beyond the bulkhead.

Diving elements are spectacular and contain a 5-meter and 3-meter diving platform combination as well as two 3-meter and two 1-meter boards. Simultaneous swimming and diving areas accommodate the Institute's unique practice of ensuring that intercollegiate practices fall within a specified four-hour window.

In addition to the 50-meter pool, the Institute has built, only six feet away, a six-lane, 25-yard, side-sloping (3-1/2 to 4-1/2 feet) warm-up pool that will be used for teaching, first-level aqua therapy and competition warm-up when necessary. Built as a championship meet venue, permanent seating can accommodate 500 spectators with room for temporary bleachers if required.

"What the facility does," says assistant athletic director John Benedick, "is bring the community together in a healthy and productive atmosphere. This isn't just about varsity swimming," he says, "but about aquatics in general. It is a way to get people back in the water."

And how.

Owner: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Architect of Record: Sasaki & Associates, Cambridge, Mass.
Design Architects: Joint venture between Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo & Associates, Hamden, Conn.
Pool Design Engineers: Counsilman/Hunsaker & Associates, St. Louis, Mo.
Pool Contractor: Acapulco Pools, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Pool Engineer: Counsilman/Hunsaker & Associates, St. Louis, Mo.
Total Sq. Ft.: 110,000
Cost of Project: $54 million (pool_$1.8 million)
Funding: Alumni donations
Major Facility Components: 50-meter by 25-yard deep-water pool with movable bulkhead, 5-meter and 3-meter diving platform combination plus two 3-meter and two 1-meter boards; 6-lane by 25-yard warm-water pool, permanent seating for 500. Meet management room in pool corner houses brains of a full Colorado Time System that energizes 20 lanes and has a full complement of diving applications. Complete with dot matrix scoreboard.
Also in Complex: Pool area includes 11,000 sq. ft. of health and fitness space, multi-activity court, six international squash courts, 7,000-sq. ft. administration area, 3,800-sq. ft. sports medicine space, multiple locker rooms, meeting/media room, sports shop and juice bar

Michael J. Stott is a contributing editor to Swimming Technique, SWIM and Swimming World magazines.

Clean Air
Paul Richards, swimming coach at Dickinson College, has a Masters degree in sports sciences with a specialization in aquatics maintenance, management and design. After considerable research, he licked a stagnant and chloramines-laden air problem at his 23-year-old pool through the installation of a fabric duct air dispersion system (DuctSox, Dubuque, Iowa) combined with a heat recovery dehumidifier (Dectron Internationale, Roswell, Ga.).

Gone are inhalers and the prolonged practice breaks. Swimmer health has improved; air quality is much improved, say competitors and spectators. Richards suspects a significant number of natatoriums may be equally needy. Cost for the retrofit was $248,000.