Counsilman-Hunsaker and Dialog Design prepared an Outdoor Pool Master Plan Report for the City of Calgary, which consisted of evaluating their seven existing outdoor aquatic centers. The assessment was intended to guide the city with a strategy for their outdoor pools recommending a course of action that will determine maintaining, decommissioning, or new build of outdoor pools to meet the needs of the public. The purpose of the study was to understand how these facilities were performing and how aquatic programming should be delivered to meet the current and future demand of the Calgary community.
In 2022, Counsilman–Hunsaker was retained by GEC Architecture to support the development of three conceptual designs for each of four outdoor swimming pool facilities: Bowview, Millican-Ogden, Mount Pleasant and Stanley Park outdoor seasonal pools. A “focus chart” was provided as a summary of pool features and amenities desired by the City of Calgary. This summary was organized into categories of “Good,” “Better,” and “Best” for the purpose of developing the conceptual designs.
Each of the three conceptual designs incorporates more pool features and amenities and results in a more significant renovation of the site. In addition to the focus chart, supplemental information was provided including record drawings for each site and swimming pool facility audits performed in recent years by other firms.
A Design Program Analysis was provided an overview of outdoor swimming pool facilities and the features. The report assisted the design team in developing the appropriate programmatic design criteria for the proposed swimming pool facilities. The final design solution will assist the city to develop not only the aquatic needs of today, but create a flexible aquatic envelope that can adapt to address the changing aquatic program needs for the future.
