50


  


© Morgan Sindall


© Morgan Sindall


Sports hall; 50-metre swimming pool; Rock climbing wall


The swimming pool is divided in half by a moveable bridge.


The eastern end is 6 metres deep but the other half has an adjustable floor so the depth can be varied as appropriate to events. One noticeable thing is the absence of both diving boards and novelty water slides. The former are missing because it was decided to spread sports facilities around Essex, and nearby Southend got the diving pool. Novelties were out so as not to detract from the emphasis on fitness. Centre manager Frank Palmer says, with obvious pride:


“There are very few 50-metre pools in the country and this one has been built to a very high specification.” Pool ventilation is provided by long fabric tubes, which take in


air from rooftop windcatchers and funnel it across the water. The tubes can be retracted for maintenance. Any immobile ven- tilation facility could not have been easily maintained without the major undertaking of emptying the pool. And there is a lot of water in it. Norris puts this at 2,186,000 litres. To make sure the concrete pool would be watertight, joints


© Morgan Sindall


were sealed with an additive and it was filled with water and left for seven days, after which leakages were measured to ensure that it met British Standard requirements for water retention. Water is kept at 28-29 degrees, with the air in the pool envi-


ronment one degree warmer, while negative pressure keeps this warmer air out of the rest of the building. Palmer says the fitness studios, with their 100 exercise sta-


tions, are designed so that ‘you have an experience like a com- mercial gym’. It includes a variety of new equipment inducing 27-gear exercise bikes based on mountain bike designs. A momentary glance at the side windows of the fitness suite


suggests they are full of crystals. In fact between two layers of glass is a gel, which gives a translucent wall letting in light during the day while allowing the building to ‘look like a glowing box at night’, as Franks puts it. Around the corner the rock climbing walls are steel covered


with plywood and painted in bold colours. Specialist climbing firm Rockwalls used the large number of small holes in the wall


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