Andrew Barr has announced the completion of planning for the Gungahlin Leisure Centre so construction can start before the election.
Construction on the centre – for which the Government has committed $28.7 million – is expected to commence in August with completion planned for early 2014.
The highlights of the leisure centre are:
— The 50 metre pool has eight lanes and allows for Olympic standard water polo.
— The 25 metre pool is warmer and specifically designed for learn-to-swim classes with different water levels depending on the age of the children being taught. The pool will also have 4 lanes for lap swimming and will also have a water play area.
— Both the 25 metre and 50 metre pools will have graduated ramps for access by people with disabilities and older people.
— In addition to the pools, there will also be a separate large water play area for children. This will include a shallow pool and also ‘splash decks’, which will incorporate structures for children to play on. There will also be adjacent seating from which parents will be able to supervise their children.
— The cafe will be for both indoor and outdoor use and parents will be able to have a coffee while they supervise their children in the water play area.
— The ‘dry areas’ will include spaces for programmed fitness classes such as aerobics and also equipment such as weight machines.
Just think how much would get done if we had elections every two years!
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mouldy said :
Totally agree. Disable and elderly people have already enjoy lots of social benefit in this country and why make it free to this group? If ticket is free to disable and people over 65, this pool will full of disable and elderlys 24/7 since it open. It is going to be hard to manage and maybe two years later has to shut down the pool because “significant loss” from operation.
No but I believe they are working on a Ginger Alert siren to go off so that anyone uncomfortable swimming in the same pool as a ranga can vacate.
SnapperJack said :
I’m sorry, but why should the disabled be admitted free? I understand a discount for valid concession holders but free? I’m sure there are plenty of disabled people out there who are working full time and making a good wage. I have red hair, can I get in free?
Holden Caulfield said :
If it’s to be in keeping with the dominant aesthetic it needs to be mock Tuscan. And those trees have to go.
PM said :
A careful inspection of the picture reveals that all commuting alternatives to the new double urinal are adequately allowed for. Bicycles (note, not shared with cars), roller blades, mature tree relocation (just sit in the branches of an appropriate tree and with luck you’ll find yourself and your tree relocatedand planted there, and an underground light rail station beneath the pools (as indicated by the lack of surface features). There’s also walking, but I agree, that’s no way to commute in the twenty-first century.
poetix said :
I hope, for sustainability purposes, they will install a chemical filter to sequester the nitrogen for use in fertilisers and explosives manufacture. Don’t want it overdosing the local limnological environment.
No car parking mentioned. Must be an ACT development.
Keijidosha said :
True – though a roof structure to facilitate an internal experience. My point was don’t judge a book by its cover, in the case a building by a single render.
EvanJames said :
The building’s panels are designed to turn bright yellow as the years pass by…It’s all natural, and done by pipes.
Steve_Pedestrian said :
And the water will be a nice colour, too.
‘The 25 metre pool is warmer and specifically designed for learn-to-swim classes with different water levels depending on the age of the children being taught. The pool will also have 4 lanes for lap swimming and will also have a water play area.’
Of course it will be warmer if little kids are in there. No need for any mechanical device for heating required.
tnpf said :
Have a look at the building exterior. The ‘wave’ is the actual roof structure. 😉
Looks like Thunderbird 1 is about to launch. The pool moves aside… smoke rises…
As with all architecture, you start with understanding the site constraints. Opposite this site is a string of single level homes. Why they are there, with CZ1 Town Core zoned land across the street you’ll have to ask ACTPLA and the LDA. But there they are, so that was a key design consideration. So is the fact that those houses are to the south, and the north side faces the small lake along the back of the college.
So the roof skillions down to the south to minimise visually overpowering the houses and up to the north to maximise passive solar heating in winter. Single spans will negate the internal flooding risk that plagues so many commercial buildings with box guttering.
Apart from that, the inside is a very large rectangle. There are limits. Look like a shed. Look like an aircraft hanger (read: CISAC). Get adventurous but expensive like the examples from Keijidosha. Or use a more conventional approach and put the dollars into the actual facilities.
Remember the promise last election was for $20 million. When that wouldn’t cover the costs they tried to back it down to having two 25 metre pools but GCC and the community made it clear a promise was a promise. So an extra $8.7m has been funded to build a 50m and a 25m plus kids waterplay area.
It’s great that the community was able to win through and keep the ALP to their election promise. This will be a facility of which Gungahlin will be proud, and it will serve us throughout growth that will see us double in population. We only had one very tight block to do this on, so it had to be right first time.
Congratulations to the ACT Government for delivering this critical infrastructure. No doubt we’ll see you at a sod turning ceremony mere weeks before the election. 🙂
Keijidosha said :
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder
“Both the 25 metre and 50 metre pools will have graduated ramps for access by people with disabilities and older people.”
This is nothing but divisive pandering that at face value appears to be helping a minority, but in actuality does nothing but highlight our differences and cause further rifts between the able bodied and disabled communities.*
*Please refer to previous threads on dividing partitions that cater for women before lambasting me for being anti-disabled person.
Who cares what it looks like when you’re in the pool doing laps? The Civic Pool bubble looks crappy but I quite like swimming there.
fabforty said :
There is no way they are going to go out of style….whoops, they just have..The colours of the Crace urban ‘precinct’ are going to be cutting edge for about 5 minutes..
But where are the bright orange panels that seem to be mandatory for all current Gungahlin structures ?
Keijidosha said :
Architecture is not functional art. As an architecture graduate I find it hard to judge a single perspective render of a building in sketch phase. Though I don’t personally care – to me the structural elements seem to dominate the facade, rather than the panels you hate which will likely change before its built. On Thorpies aquatic centre- the ‘wave’ ceiling is an internal feature, so who knows maybe you’ll get a similarly, incredibly literal treatment here.