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diving right in
By Clarence D. Mamuyac
Competition venues for aquatics should have
the same impact as new facilities for revenue
sports programs like football and basketball.
The University of Southern California Trojans have won 11 national championships in
football. Pretty impressive. But you might not know that the school’s swimming and
diving program has won 10 national championships, and its water polo teams have won
13—the men added their sixth in a row this year.
For the athletes, coaches and fans of non-revenue sports, such relative obscurity
comes with the territory. You probably know that USC football’s home field is the Los
Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which hosted the city’s two Summer Olympic Games in
1932 and 1984. Less well known is the fact that USC’s aquatics programs also compete
in facilities built for the 1984 Olympics. But unlike the grand Memorial Coliseum,
the Olympic Swim Stadium that surrounded the dotted “i” configuration of 50-meter
pool and dive tank was intended as a temporary facility. It is only this season that
the USC swimming, diving and water polo programs are debuting a state-of-the-art
competition venue—named for Fred Uytengsu, the former Trojan walk-on and swim
captain whose donation was the largest to-date by a USC student-athlete—befitting the
school’s dominance in these sports.
As the designers of Stanford’s Avery Aquatic Center, which opened in 2000, as
well as the new Uytengsu Aquatics Center and the forthcoming California Aquatics
Center at UC-Berkeley, we’ve seen the expectations of student-athletes and program
administrators rise over the years. It is no longer enough to have the fastest pool or the
biggest facility. These days, it’s vital that the building do for aquatics what arenas and
stadiums do for the basketball and football programs—impress recruits, inspire studentathletes, and meet the varying needs of spectators and the campus community.
MAY 2014 21
Team Building
The path to USC’s new aquatics venue was fairly convoluted. In 1988,
the university constructed the Kennedy Family Aquatics Building along
the pools’ southern edge to solidify the former Olympic site as the
future home of USC intercollegiate aquatic sports. Unfortunately, the
building encroached on the pools’ original Olympics footprint, as it was
shoehorned between the pools and the football practice field. At about
the same time, the university constructed the Lyon Recreation Center
to the immediate north of the pools, which included spectator seating
for the pools on its south face for use during intercollegiate events. As a
result of this hemmed-in location, the aquatics facility barely registered
as a presence on McClintock Avenue, the campus athletics corridor that
borders the facility’s eastern edge.
Both the existing pool basins and the Lyon Center seating represented
opportunities to save money on construction of a new aquatics venue,
but they also constrained the possible layout. Another restriction was the
university’s architectural vocabulary, known as Collegiate Romanesque,
which called for brick, precast concrete and, possibly, arches in the final
structure. It was clear from the start that the existing seating would have
to be mirrored on the other side of the pools. Thankfully, the Kennedy
Building was demolished to make room for the larger aquatic center
footprint.
Through the process of designing and completing the Uytengsu Aquatics
Center, it has become very clear to us how vital it is that competition
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22 private university products and news pupnmag.com
venues for non-revenue sports resemble their
revenue-sports cousins in a number of areas:
Presence
With exposed steel, shade canopies, event
lighting and, of course, the highly visible dive
tower, the Uytengsu Center announces its
presence as a spectator facility to visitors from
either the north entry (the parking garage) or
McClintock Avenue to the south. At street level,
the arched entry pavilion and the dryland training
facility’s arched glazed windows—hewing to the
campus architectural style—offer views inside,
and to the pool deck and water beyond. With
an external appearance composed of elements
and materials from the Collegiate Romanesque
pallet, the university was supportive of a more
contemporary aesthetic inside the stadium,
which allowed us to express the basic structure
of the canopy system. The result was a pleasing
reinforcement of the project’s formal symmetry
via a series of tapered, white steel columns that
line opposite sides of the 50-meter pool and add
to the sense of stadium enclosure.
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Student-athletes shared design ideas felt most like stadia—fully enclosed plans with seating. This configuration is more intimate
throughout the process and were quick to grandstands relatively close to the pools and and focuses attention (and noise) toward the
gravitate toward whichever plans looked and topped with some sort of covered spectator athletes, who commented to us that they
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MAY 2014 25
wanted the venue to feel like “a Coliseum.” In
contrast, note that Stanford’s competition pool,
completed 14 years earlier, features grandstands
on either side but opens toward two large
training pools on one end, slightly altering the
feel and broadening the spectators’ focus.
for training as well as competition; as such,
it’s outfitted with cameras linked to multiple
video displays within the venue, giving the
athletes immediate visual feedback on their
effort and form. The dryland training facility
inside the McClintock Avenue arcade serves
the diving team with trampolines, foam pits
Team Facilities and Technology
and gymnastics apparatuses. A common room
The Uytengsu Aquatics Center is designed between the men’s and women’s locker rooms
serves as a lounge and meeting room dedicated
to student-athletes.
For competition events, screens built into the
dive tower link to three camera setups—low,
high and head-on. The LED video display is
curved for easy viewing from either grandstand
and is readable in sunlight.
Branding
Layered branding by Nashville, Tenn.-based
Advent includes photo supergraphics, seethrough window decals and strategically placed
trophies and video monitors that tell the
triumphant story of USC aquatics. Coaches
have in mind a “recruit walk” around the pool
deck to the coaches’ building opposite the
entry arcade, into the student lounge and then
upstairs to coaches’ offices that overlook the
pools.
Spectator Amenities
Swimming events typically don’t attract large
crowds, so a facility like Uytengsu, whose
uses range from training to dual meets to
national competitions, has to appear as the
right size whether there are 500 spectators or
2,500. Permanent seating in the two secondfloor grandstands accommodates up to 1,500
spectators, while temporary stands on the pool
deck put 1,000 more spectators even closer
to the action. The deck, storage rooms and
locker room access were designed around these
temporary seating locations so that the largercapacity facility is seamless in appearance and
function.
The permanent spectator zone is accessed
via the Lyon Center, as well as by stairs located
in each of the center’s four corners, and the
entire upper level rings the facility like a large,
open-air concourse. With a goal of bringing
the competition venue within reach of the
larger community, the concourse “observation
deck” was outfitted with tables and umbrellas
along McClintock Avenue, offering striking
views of the adjacent dive tower and tank, as
well as the Downtown Los Angeles skyline.
The observation deck has fast become not
only a student magnet during events, but also
a prime location for wifi-enabled school work
and play, sunning and socializing (the pool is
open for recreational swimming when not in
use by athletic teams).
26 private university products and news pupnmag.com
The multipurpose room on the first floor of the coaches’ building
serves as a second team meeting room, a student-athlete lounge and
a party room during meets. Glass doors along the length of the space
accordion out, adding to the room’s appeal by opening it to the pool
deck.
Championship Venues
Architects serve many users when designing competition venues. The
student-athletes’ experience of the building as a place where they
train, compete, study and enjoy student life must be at the top of the
list, particularly in a program like USC’s that has produced scores of
champions and Olympians. But others have a stake in such facilities,
too. These venues need a presence that can be transmitted to donors,
guests, the larger student body and even television viewers—and they
must knock the socks off every 17-year-old potential recruit who comes
to see them.
This is as true for aquatics as it is for big-time football—and
USC’s commitment to its aquatics program ensures that its new
competition venue has every bit as much gravitas and drama as the
L.A. Coliseum.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Clarence D. Mamuyac, Jr., FAIA, LEED
AP BD+C (cmamuyac@elsarch.com) is a principal with ELS
Recent ADA Changes for Pools
for Private Colleges and Universities
Overview
Every commercial pool needs an ADA approved means of access. Pools less
than 300 Linear Feet require one primary means of access. Pools greater than
300 Linear Feet require two accessible means of access. At least one of these
means of access must be a primary means.
Accessible Equipment
Pool lifts and sloped entries are the two primary means of access. Transfer
walls, transfer systems, or pool stairs are secondary means of access and may
be used as long as there is also a primary means of access in place.
Pool Lifts and Competitive Swimming Pools
Some facilities prefer to clean and clear deck space around their competition
swimming pools. One solution is to provide a portable swimming lift that can be
moved. However, a portable lift cannot be shared between pools, as each pool
requires its own means of accessible access.
Compliance Timelines
Newly designed and constructed pools must be compliant when they are built.
For existing pools, when a pool is altered beyond general maintenance, by
anything that affects the pool’s operation, the pool must be made compliant.
In addition, private facilities that generate commerce must make their facilities
compliant if it is “readily achievable,” which means that it can be done without
too much expense or difficulty. Pool lifts are an inexpensive and easy solution
to the removal of barriers.
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MAY 2014 27