Diving ambition

SPLASH! In at the deep end with lead weights Stied around their ankles. That is what it must have felt like to Ian Wragg and his staff as they dived into the deep end of an m&e services contract at Manchester Aquatics Centre, the swimming pool complex for the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

Wragg is a project manager with Haden Young, the company awarded the medal-worthy task of installing and commissioning much of the building services in just 39 weeks.

The main pool area looks every bit of its Commonwealth Games status. Its asymmetrical roof arcs from ground level to a crest above the main pool and wave-shaped accoustic baffles seem to ripple over the spectator seating.

Haden Young has installed mechanical services and the bms and coordinated all building services including pool filtration, false pool flooring and digital timing technology. N G Bailey has installed the electrical services and its sister company Bailey Telecom provided voice and data equipment.

For Wragg, it is what is hidden from public view downstairs that makes the complex special, and he doesn't mean the second 50 m training pool, even though the complex is the first in the UK to house two Olympic size pools.

Enter the bowels of the complex and the full scope of the services design can literally swallow you up. Ventilation to the pool area is provided via a structural concrete wet and dry duct system that runs around its perimeter. The duct is large enough for Wragg to give a guided tour through it, taking in observation windows which provide an eerie underwater view of the diving pool.

Warm air is pumped into the duct and then into the pool area through grilles at waist level around the side of the room at 30°C, one degree warmer than the water.

Stale air is extracted through a transfer duct at the pool edge which is also used as a water run off. From there the air is taken back to the plant room and dehumidified before being mixed with fresh air and put back into the system.

Such measures can never completely get rid of excess moisture. Because of its constant presence, all services have had to be designed to accomodate it; conduit, cable trays and tie rods are grp and nylon, metal products are treated with chlorinated rubber paint and items like light fittings are polycarbonate.

The plant room which is situated in the basement, alongside the training pool, is a huge space containing all kinds of kit – pool pumps, 12 sets of filtration plant, hydraulics to raise and lower the false floors in the main pool as well as service pumps, boilers and a chp unit.

The chp unit has been used due to the high energy use of his type of building. It is designed as the lead boiler, providing heating and electricity in the summer, with back up from the boilers when the weather turns cooler.

Adjacent to the plant room, the training pool area includes a gym and offices installed with communications, power and a clean data link, all for athlete training. Upstairs in the public areas there is a dance studio, cafe, fitness and health suites and a creche – all for public use after the Games.

In completing the contract in 39 weeks, Wragg and Co have pulled off a feat that some would have said was impossible in record-breaking time. Step up to the rostrum for your gold medal folks.