Providing good natatorium lighting - Brief Article

There are several different approaches to providing good natatorium lighting.

The project's electrical engineer decides on the best approach with the architect's concurrence after considering the roof structure, height of the fixtures, and required level of illumination. Making the right decisions on the lighting design can make the difference between a very successful project and a mediocre building.

For indoor pools, it is always desirable to avoid setting up scaffolding or ladders in the water to relamp the fixtures. For larger pools, such as 25-yard wide pools, it is difficult to provide 100 footcandles (fc) at the water surface required by swimming organizations without at least two of the rows of light fixtures over the swimming pool. If the roof is high enough, two rows of light fixtures over the pool decks will work when using a combination of direct and indirect fixtures. On projects with lower roofs, the engineer will usually use an indirect lighting approach.

For the new swimming pool at the Albuquerque Academy, the indirect lighting approach was found to cost about 60% more than a direct down lighting approach. Even with the cost of catwalks to provide access for replacing lamps, a significant savings was achieved with reduced operational cost. The lighting system contributes to a superior quality level of the competition facility as evidenced by the gutter design, vertical location of the timing deck plates, oversize track start platforms, and other well designed features.

The new Burlington Wellness Center in Burlington, Wisconsin is an example of a well-illuminated pool used for high school competition and other fitness needs. Utilizing relatively few fixtures, this is one of the best indirect lighting design projects. For a recreation pool, The Pointe at Ballwin Commons is another very successful indirect lighting approach. The fixtures that are mounted at the sides of the pool provide very good illumination over the center of the wide pool. During the day, natural lighting supplements the artificial lighting, but at all times 35 fc are provided at the water level.

In contrast, a competition pool in Texas uses many indirect fixtures in an attempt to provide 100 fc over the 25-yard wide pool. The limited success of this design is partly due to the poorer reflectivity of the wood roof deck. While many professionals believe that indirect lighting systems provide a high quality of light, the glare on the water of a luminous ceiling seems to make that a fallacy for natatoria.

The University Aquatic Center at the University of Minnesota has fixtures located in two rows along the sides of the pool with a combination of indirect and direct lighting. This type of design, also used successfully at the St. Peters REC-PLEX in Missouri and Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, provides the required illumination over the center of the pool while replacing the lamps is done completely over the deck.

While there are three main approaches to successful lighting design in natatoria, the first approach that should be investigated is the direct down lighting approach. Direct lighting usually offers the lowest initial cost, lowest energy usage, and best distribution of light over the water. Although there may be reasons to look at one of the alternatives, more facilities should thoroughly investigate this first approach. In additional to large spectator facilities, such as the Indianapolis Natatorium, University of Georgia, and Texas A & M, that use this type of design, the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center also uses the direct lighting approach with catwalks for lamp replacement. In the training center, coaches make use of the catwalks for observing swimmers' strokes.

Richard C. Scott AIA author of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Natatorium Design, "Indoor Decks and Drains", and "Natatorium Lighting", is an architect who specializes in aquatics consulting for competition and leisure pools. He has designed over 170 swimming pools over the last 26 years of architectural practice. He is Vice President of Water Technology, Inc. in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

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