On a lean budget, build a state-of-the-art competition pool and turn required fencing and paving into significant functional, iconic community architecture. Use daylight and night lighting, color, and beautiful pool water to honor the neighborhood, the City, the Park, and the Boulevard by making this architecture celebratory and joyous.
This Public Park Pool is located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley where it is very hot during the summer. It is the only public swimming pool within a five (5) mile radius and has served this community for over fifty years. It has been out of operation for several years. Working with an incredibly tight budget– basically enough to build a new pool, pave it and fence it—architects leveraged readily available, off-the-shelf industrial materials to transform fencing into ten cube-shade cabanas with built-in seating, and five 30-foot high, lightly monumental urban shade pavilions that give emblematic importance to this renewed civic place on sparse Victory Boulevard. Paving was leveraged to unify new parking, existing basketball courts, and the pool using alternating colored stripes (set by parking space dimensions, and red “confetti”, which extrude into benches periodically.
Awards
Award for Excellence in Design, American Institute of Architects - Los Angeles, 2013
Award of Excellence, American Institute of Architects - Los Angeles / Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission, 2012
Location:
Reseda, CA
Client:
City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Engineering
Cost & Scope:
$3 million; 40,000 sq. ft.
Key Personnel:
Nachi Madhavan, James Madhavan and Associates – Aquatic Consultant
Fabio Zangoli, John Labib & Associates – Structural Engineer
Helen Williams, Donald Dickerson and Associates – MEP Engineer
Mia Lehrer, Mia Lehrer + Associates – Landscape Architect (softscape)
Lehrer Architects – Landscape (hardscape, urban furniture)
James Park, Morillo Construction, Inc. – General Contractor
