PROJECT REPORT: SPORTS & LEISURE FACILITIES 37
was a challenge we were keen to take on.” Despite being up for the task, delivering Passivhaus for a leisure centre was a challenging undertaking. “It’s one of the few leisure centres to be designed to Passivhaus standards, and the rigours and technicalities affect both RIBA Stages and programme, impacting design decisions agreed far earlier in the process,” he explains.
Passivhaus specialists Gale & Snowden were crucial to success on the project. “They worked closely with our leisure team and brought a level of lessons-learned that supported both the fi nal design, and technical delivery team,” says Gowdridge. It was also essential to “escalate” collaboration and communication between design and build teams to achieve the rigour required.
GT3 embraced the complexity and the challenges which the project presented. “Mapping complex technical Passivhaus requirements to such a large wet and dry leisure typology added a challenging yet exciting knot of complexity to the project, as it pushed the team to look at new,
better approaches and design techniques,” Gowdridge says. They produced over 500 technical and architectural drawings in the process, to ensure the highly controlled standards and necessary communication structures were in place in order to achieve “perfectly matched adherence to the stringent Passivhaus benchmarks, with millimetre precision.”
The close partnership with main contractor Willmott Dixon was also fundamental. “The project is distinguished by its deeply collaborative nature,” comments Gowdridge. “This shared commitment ensured that the fi nal design didn’t just meet technical and environmental targets but also delivered real value to the local community.” The completed facility is the UK’s
fi rst Passivhaus-designed 50:50 wet and dry leisure centre. The wet amenities include a 25 metre eight lane swimming pool with 250 seat gallery, a learner pool with full-width ‘self-depositing’ steps, a children’s splash zone, a steam room and a sauna. The dry amenities comprise
The decision was made at Stage 3 to aim for Passivhaus certifi cation – an extremely rare target for a building of this scale and typology
PRECISION The fi nal design met stringent Passivhaus requirements “with millimetre precision”
ADF SEPTEMBER 2025
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
