Swimming Pool & Sports Facility Planning

Author: Gar Holohan B.Arch.Sc., Dip.Arch., FRIAI. Aura Holohan Leisure Group, Ireland

After 40 years specialising on sports design, the author is weary of clients and architects continuing to make the same mistakes and waste scarce resources on badly planned and poorly designed sports and leisure facilities. Gar Holohan is the founder and chairman of the Aura Holohan Group who operate several public aquatic centres and a chain of private fitness gyms in Ireland. He shares his ideas on how to avoid common mistakes when planning swimming pool and sports facilities.

Back in the early 1980s, long before I got involved in sports facility management, I used to visit facilities all over the world and be guided around by fellow architects who proudly showed off their “award-winning” work. During that time, I recall being enthusiastic about the terrific contribution architects made to sports & leisure. Then one day I was shown around by a centre manager. As we walked around, I was taking photos and remarking on various design features and then I noticed a pattern in his responses, which invariably began with “ya, it does look well, but…”Over the following years I revisited many of the architectural “masterpieces” that I had been shown around previously, only this time I asked the managers to give me a guided tour. I soon understood what Marcel Proust meant when he said, “The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes.” I soon began to realise that:

The layout of a club can have a major impact on staffing costs, on secondary spend, and how effectively a membership “sales tour” can be conducted.
The lack of understanding how to properly calculate the capacity of different areas (e.g. changing accommodation) can lead to bottlenecks and an underutilised facility.
The detailed design and fit-out of a club can create barriers to a large proportion of potential customers who are not fully able-bodied.
Within five years many facilities may want to refurbish, expand, or change the use of several areas, without having to shut down their existing business for a long period.
Poor budgeting, particularly in relation to lifecycle costs, can lead to high maintenance and energy costs on the one hand and a waste of money on the other.

The remarkable thing is that many of the basic design-generated problems that were pointed out to me 20 years ago are still being repeated today! Why is this? One reason is the “copycat” approach of project teams who want to replicate successful facilities without realising that the facilities they have visited were based on thinking and trends 10+ years ago. A key question that must be asked is what current trends should we consider for the future?

Communication and consultation

Many of the problems arise from poor communication and consultation throughout the design process. Clients tend to assume that architects understand how sports and leisure centres operate, and many architects assume they have all the answers – unfortunately, this is often because they are not aware of half the questions that must be addressed. Different groups use the same facilities for different reasons, e.g. fitness swimming vs relaxation or socialising. The design team need to understand what facilities will appeal to people in the catchment area, and when and how they will use them. Different cultures can have different consumer preferences e.g. the market demand and revenue potential for spa facilities in central and northern Europe does not exist to the same extent in the British Isles.

Project brief and importance of feedback

In many cases no written brief is prepared setting out clearly the objectives of the project, what facilities are to be provided, for whom, or how the facility will operate on a day to- day basis. Often the briefing amounts to the client and architect visiting several facilities, which the client “likes the look of” and then putting together an “à la carte” selection of the “best parts” to create the ideal building. This might work when designing a house but not for a sports / leisure facility. The “research visit” usually involves a tour where all the best features of an existing facility are pointed out by the architect or owner. Many of the common problems in sports and leisure design are not obvious to an inexperienced eye, and the proud tour guide is not likely to point out the shortcomings of a facility. The result: many design-generated problems are copied time after time. This casual approach to learning can never replace a proper review of the feedback from experienced managers and operators. If there’s only one question you ask on a research site visit, it should be addressed to the owner or the general manager, and it is: “What would you do differently if you were starting all over again?” You will be amazed at the different impression you will come away with. Quite often, as initial design concepts are developed, following research and site visits, people lose sight of the original objectives of the project. It is essential that, when design reviews take place throughout the design process, proposals are evaluated to ensure they continue to meet the original project objectives.

Budget: Price vs value

Many projects are doomed before they open because of poor budgeting and an inadequate assessment of all the cost provisions to be made. Often, due to omissions in the budget to cater for such things as loose furniture, signage, etc. or overruns at the early stages, cutbacks result in reduced specification for the things customers touch and feel. This invariably leads to the facility looking shabby within a few years, and to high maintenance costs. When deciding on the quality of specification, “cost in use” (which usually substantially exceeds the initial capital costs over the lifetime of the building) must be considered to get the right balance between initial capital cost and recurring maintenance costs. It is worth keeping in mind John Glenn’s famous quote when he was asked what it felt like sitting atop the rocket before launching to the moon. “I felt about as good as anybody would, sitting on a capsule on top of a rocket that were both built by the lowest bidder.” Yet many businesses are launched based on the “cheapest” approach. On the other hand, some buildings are over-specified. The highest area of over specification is often in the building services. Many installations have expensive, highly sophisticated systems; half of which are never used to their full potential and that would require a maintenance person with a PhD to understand. Consistency in quality of space and finishes is important throughout the facility. I regularly come across “grand” entrances that create a great first impression but then have spartan locker rooms. Customers make judgements based on the area with the lowest standards of quality.

“Poor budgeting, particularly in relation to lifecycle costs, can lead to high maintenance and energy costs on the one hand and a waste of money on the other.”

Understanding facility capacity

With most buildings, their capacity can be determined by simple “space formulas” (e.g. 6 m² per person in a pool). There are huge variations in the number of people that facilities can hold per square metre, depending on how they are designed and, critically, how they are programmed and operated. Time after time, feasibility consultants overestimate the capacity of swimming pools and sports halls, and therefore propose facilities that are too small. The vast majority of visits are usually made during “peak demand periods” which account for half of the opening hours. Being full every hour would be both unrealistic and uncomfortable from a user’s perspective. A six-lane 25m pool might accommodate 24 people for fitness swimming but over 70 people for an aquarobics class or swimming lessons. So, while a 25-m six-lane pool may have a theoretical capacity of 3,432 over a 52-hour peak period, a varied community-focused programme could reduce the comfortable capacity by 40 % and more. A clear understanding of the pool programming is essential to be able to determine the facility capacity. As a rough guide, the Sport England Planning Model uses 70 % of the theoretical capacity for swimming pools and 80 % for sports halls. Balancing the capacity of each stage of the customer journey is also critical, e.g. the car park, the changing areas and the activity areas should all be in sync from a capacity perspective. People will jog on a treadmill for 30 minutes but will be put out if they are forced to walk more than 3 minutes from a parking space. The smallest element can create a bottleneck and determines the capacity, yet time and time again, clubs are developed with small changing rooms and large pools and/or gyms.

Problems arising from poor layout

A myriad of problems can arise when facilities are not laid out effectively, for example:

Staffing is the highest expenditure area of sports and leisure facilities. Layouts that do not optimise visual access control of key areas, or blind spots in water areas that require additional lifeguards, can add hugely to operating costs.
Supermarkets put the daily essentials at the back of the shop so that people pass by products and are exposed to impulse buys. Why then are operators surprised that secondary spend is not making budget when the changing rooms are near the front door and the food and beverage operation is upstairs?
Dance studios and fitness areas are noisy, with vibrations and base frequencies penetrating walls, floors and ceilings; yet some facilities have them next to quiet spa areas and/or treatment rooms.
Cross-circulation between wet and dry areas can result in constant cleaning headaches as well as safety issues.
Poorly located storage can lead to increased staffing costs and loss of activity time when changing from one activity to another.
Most sports and leisure facilities need to sell memberships to stay in business, yet the “sales tour” is often an afterthought. Patrons need to have a comfortable waiting area; they need to be able to travel through the facility without interfering with members using the facility; and they need to be able to access the best vantage points to observe the best features.

Not planning ahead

Most well-used facilities need to be refurbished every five years or so, and successful pools and sports facilities often want to expand as the business grows. The ideal refurbishment programme will have elements that can quickly replace existing ones. Potential future extensions should be considered at the outset and should be capable of being built without a long closure of the existing operations. For

example:

Changing rooms are often constructed in the centre of a building, making it difficult to extend them without loss of an activity area.
Some facilities are heavily styled, relying on features built in concrete or tiling that are expensive to change.
Some plant rooms are completed after large pieces of equipment are installed, without consideration as to how the equipment can be replaced. With energy and environmental regulations changing so rapidly, the likelihood is that several replacements will be required in the plant room over the life of the project.
Access for servicing, refurbishments and possible extensions need to be considered from the outset to minimise costs. Where will the building contractor offload and store materials for example?

Flexibility and adaptation

While it is an arduous process, requiring the imagining and overlaying of potential future uses, flexibility should be designed into the planning of the main activity areas, their support spaces and circulation areas. A simple example of this is the built-in adaptability of spaces around a main pool or sports hall so that they can temporarily serve as viewing areas, administration area or a press centre for events.

Designing “high maintenance”

The cost of maintenance is not just determined by quality and durability; other factors that lead to high costs include:

Poor access for servicing: for example, inaccessible light fittings or high areas of glass that require scaffolding or cherry packers to gain access, often at overtime rates when the facility is closed.
Access for deliveries: One fitness gym recently had to have a whole section of windows taken out and a scaffolding platform built for treadmills to be installed, due to access stairs being too narrow.
Maintenance / service contracts: One club in Europe had a “combined heat and power” system installed that was to save EUR 20,000 p.a. in energy costs; however, the guarantee requires that the Austrian company who supplied the equipment also carried out the annual maintenance at a cost of EUR 16,000 p.a.

“The design team need to understand what facilities will appeal to people in the catchment area, and when and how they will use them.”

Designing “barriers to potential customers”

Many architects think that by complying with various building codes they have removed the “barriers” to people who might like to use a facility. What many do not realise is that barriers can be psychological and not just physical. There are 1.2 billion people in the world with a disability, and an annual spend of EUR 7 trillion. When you consider that many people growing older do not regard themselves as having a disability, and the fact that people often like to work out with friends, the loss of potential business can be huge. The large, and growing, market of people with a disability has almost twice the spending power of teens. The sort of common designs generated that currently exist include:

Vertical ladders into swimming pools that are virtually impossible for many older people to use, particularly people with hip problems or arthritis.

Modesty barriers: e.g. for older women or people who are overweight, such as the lack of private showers or changing cubicles or locating sauna / steam rooms so that someone has to parade around a poolside, in public view, to gain access.
Signage with small print or low colour contrast. People generally do not wear their glasses in a pool area, steam room or when working out.
Heavy doors that are difficult to open for people using mobility aids and carrying kit bags.
Absence of “quiet areas” due to lack of due consideration to acoustics that can cause sensory overload for some potential customers.

Building management system

A well-designed building management system is essential to maintain public and staff comfort and also to ensure minimal wastage in energy through the facility. Some common mistakes include:

Inadequate seasonal strategies. It is essential that leisure centres have different strategies for summer and winter. These should be very easily switched over by a trained member of staff. Free cooling can be utilised during the winter, while free heating can be utilised in the summer months.
The building management system should have the facility to measure energy usage in real time. This can be separate to the building management system, but measuring electricity, water and fuel in real time can identify leaks and energy wastage.
The building management system should identify individual fans, pumps, motors that have failed. This will allow staff to alert contractors before any issues arise with comfort levels throughout the facility.

Lighting

Over half of the visits to many facilities are made during the hours of darkness; why then is so little attention often given to lighting? We have all seen how good lighting design can contribute to a facility’s image and create opportunities to provide different environments. However, lack of attention to lighting design can have the opposite effect. Some common mistakes include:

Inadequate external lighting to overcome security / safety fears, especially among women.
Installing bright / white lights that make people too pale and washed out.
Not designing the building to optimise the opportunities for natural light, while being careful about “glare”, especially in pool areas.

Heating and ventilation

Complaints from operators regarding heating and ventilation usually cover two extremes; either too little was spent, and customers are not comfortable, or too much was spent on over-sophisticated equipment that is expensive to maintain. Examples of common mistakes in the design include:

The lack of a quick-response system in an exercise studio to cater for the different temperatures required for yoga as opposed to dance classes.
Ditto for treatment rooms, where some treatments require full disrobing.
Lack of zoning / separation of areas of high humidity (e.g. sauna, pool areas) from changing areas where members want to cool down.

New issues arising from the Covid-19 pandemic

When Covid-19 risk assessments were being undertaken over recent years, the facilities that were designed with “universal access” or high levels of “accessibility” were better able to reduce risk for customers. For example:

Automatic doors and shallow ramps provided touchless access.
Wider corridors allowed “social distancing”.
Rarely used fire escape routes suddenly became alternative access routes to different activity areas. Future-proofing designs is likely to involve zoning buildings for separate access to activity areas, with dedicated ventilation zoning systems.

First steps for successful sports and leisure facility design

Oscar Wilde once wrote “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes”. Get someone who knows the business on board as early as possible to prepare a brief and audit the design. It is cheaper to pay for good advice than to pay for your own experience! Prepare your business plan first, then your project brief covering facilities and operations, and only then your building plans. And remember, because a business works in one location does not mean it can be copied successfully elsewhere. Designers often make proposals based on what they themselves would like. Be clear about your target market and ensure your design reflects what potential customers want.

“Because a business works in one location does not mean it can be copied successfully elsewhere.”