Sammamish Community and Aquatic Center makes a splash

In the spring of 2016, the Sammamish Community and Aquatic Center opened to large crowds of active adults and playful children. Created in collaboration with the YMCA, the facility realizes Sammamish’s goal of creating sustainable facilities for its growing population.

By Glumac February 17, 2017

In the spring of 2016, the Community and Aquatic Center in Sammamish, Wash., opened to large crowds of active adults and playful children. Created in collaboration with the YMCA, it’s a facility that realizes Sammamish’s goal of creating sustainable facilities for its growing population.

Glumac had the responsibility of developing this community space along with Barker Rinker Seacat (architects), the city of Sammamish (architects), Porter Brothers (contractor), and the YMCA (project end user). Glumac provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing, lighting design, and energy modeling. The team built the 60,000-sq-ft facility adjacent to the city hall, library, and farmers market. It includes a 6-lane pool, an activity pool, a 2-story water slide, hot tub, two gyms, group fitness rooms, locker rooms, a track, and a community kitchen. The center’s location enriches this community with more local engagement opportunities.

"Community buildings are gratifying because you know how they will get used," said Glumac Project Manager Michael Aliaga. "They help build a legacy of engagement and vibrancy for a community."

Lighting for activity

In the pool space, Glumac’s lighting studio, led by Jesse Smith, designed the first fully LED-lit pool installation in Washington and in the YMCA network. LEDs are typically found in larger-scale projects, but the center has roughly 90% LED lights throughout. Smith designed indirect lighting over the pool so a swimmer doing the backstroke will never have to stare at a harsh light and the facility owners will never have to drain the pool to service the lights.

Smith also made the lighting controls flexible throughout the facility to allow the center to host many different events. For example, Smith designed light fixtures for the gym that could light at one-third, two-thirds, or full brightness. That means facility operators can use more light for gym-goers on a cloudy day or less light for a more intimate event like a lecture.

"The design really allows for a wide breadth of usage," Smith said. "While the community changes and evolves, the space can adapt to serve its needs even if we don’t know what those needs are at this point."

Energy modeling

Glumac’s energy team helped reduce the project’s carbon footprint. Pool spaces typically use a lot of energy due to the need to constantly move air in an effort to push out chlorine particles and keep the air clean and safe for swimmers. So, Glumac modeled a combination of systems that used heat recovery in the pool area and a high-efficiency HVAC system in the support spaces to minimize energy use.

Additionally, the exercise rooms have dimmers, so users can light the space for karate practice or lower the lighting for meditation. Not only does this allow for a more positive user experience, but having the option for lower lighting results in energy savings.

Glumac’s plumbing staff teamed up with the project’s civil engineers for innovative water conservation. The civil engineers established paths for rainwater to collect not only from the roof, but from the entire site. From there, Glumac assisted with greywater filtration and distribution, which is used for flushing the entire building’s toilets.


-This article originally appeared on Glumac’s blog. Glumac is a CFE Media content partner.

Original content can be found at www.glumac.com.