Arcadia High School Aquatic Center

Replaced existing Pool with new Aquatic Center, including a new building for pool equipment & storage, offices, showers, lockers and restrooms, new perimeter block walls and steel canopies. Also added a new Career Technical Education Facility which includes an MP Building with Physical Therapy, Athletic Training, Whirlpool Area, Laundry and Storage. 

   The design came out of collaboration among the district’s school board and facilities department, Arcadia High School’s staff, faculty, athletic director, and coaches as well as local community leaders. The overall educational programming and design plan evolved through a series of architect lead workshops and planning sessions leading to a comprehensive and multiuse sports medicine career tech educational facility and aquatics center.

   The long out dated existing aquatics complex did not meet CIF requirements preventing home water polo and swim meets. Additionally, repair and maintenance issues such as poor chlorine regulation and inadequate facilities for a modern high school aquatics program necessitated the demolition of the existing pool complex and surrounding practice fields and hardscapes. The campus lacked the essential career tech educational components vital to 21st century students seeking a sports medicine program, something the district desired to add.

   Located in a southern California suburban community of Los Angeles County and centrally on the Arcadia High School campus between classroom buildings and sports fields, a new southern entry opens into the new quad, hardscapes and student “mall” leading to the new Aquatic and Career Technical Education Sports Medicine Complex. Designed with energy efficiency in mind and exceeding Title 24 energy requirements and integration of high performance techniques of CHPS and LEED, the building utilizes a state of the art energy management control system. This system utilizes “touch pad” controls, and seamlessly integrates the lighting and mechanical systems together. Further, the design focused on building a facility that was innovative, multi-purpose, and integrated seamlessly into the existing Arcadia campus aesthetics utilizing plaster, brick veneer and steel.

   Raising the bar for 21st century learning and athletic training opportunities, the final expanded aquatic complex design relocated and enlarged the pool. Arcadia High School now has a 25 yard by 33 meter pool with varying depths from 3.5 to 7 feet over 11 competition lanes in deep water that can be used for athletics, education and joint community uses through evening and after hours. Meeting CIF requirements, AHS can now hold home water polo games, host CIF games and regional swim meets for the first time. As well, they served as host for the 2015 Special Olympics as a practice venue during this last summer’s games. Giving the swim and polo teams their own bathrooms, adding new outside showers and new mechanical systems answered pragmatic and problematic challenges presented by the old complex. Utilizing newer sophisticated touch pad sensors at the end of each swim lane and wired directly to the scoreboard, athletes’ times are clocked close to the millisecond and ensures accuracy and integrity in swim competitions. Taking every opportunity to maximize the complex as a multiuse athletic and educational facility, the sports medicine program utilizes the ADA required lifts for pool access as training opportunities for physical therapy and aquatic therapy.

 Located where the previous pool had been, the new Career Technical Education Sports Medicine Complex offers an intergraded curriculum combined with multiuse and multifaceted building design to create a flexible learning environment and community use facility. Comprising facilities for PT training and exercise, fully equipped physical therapy rooms, and a large multi-use room, the sports medicine complex offers opportunities for student and community events such as joint lectures and programs with the local Arcadia Methodist Hospital, health and wellness trainings, Red Cross Blood Drives as well as provide a full sports medicine facility to support, educate, and train athletes.