Selwyn Sports and Aquatic Centre

Holmes has been involved in the structural engineering and design of both the 1,400m2 Selwyn Aquatic Centre Extension as well as the newly opened 8,000m2 Selwyn Sports Centre opposite. This is first new sporting complex to open in Canterbury following the devastating 2010 – 2011 earthquakes, and the first building within an exciting new recreation precinct.

This fantastic sporting and recreational facility has an eight lane 25 metre indoor competition pool, a “learn to swim” pool, hydrotherapy pool with spa, and a toddler pool. The aquatic centre extension also includes a multipurpose community room, staff areas, and new family change rooms to make the facility more accessible and functional.

The Sports Centre has eight indoor courts–four with a specialised synthetic surface for multi-use and the other four with high-performance sprung timber flooring. The facility has 240m jogging tracks on the mezzanine level, and a Lü Uno interactive digital playground wall—a NZ-first—creating an immersive video game through lights, sounds, and videos. It also has a multipurpose pavilion function/group fitness room with full kitchen facilities, a 25+ smart spin bike room, toilet and change facilities (both indoor and outdoor) including accessible facilities, and two premier football rooms.

Alongside Rolleston College (which Holmes also helped develop), Foster Park, the artificial Football and Hockey Turfs, the Selwyn Aquatic Centre extension and the Selwyn Sports Centre are the final elements of bringing the community a hub of sport, recreation, and education.

The Selwyn Aquatic Centre extension – Mass Timber Excellence:

The Selwyn Aquatic Centre’s main structure includes pin-base 31m clear span glulam portal frames with steel knee connections. Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) purlins support the Kingspan cladded roof and includes two feature sky lights for increased natural light. Techlam supplies the exposed GL12 glulam, which provides an inviting environment and doubles as a durable building for the pool environment. All steel connections include a duplex coated system, or High Corrosion Resistant (HCR) fixings to limit the risk of stress corrosion cracking in the chlorine environment. This follows the British Standard, BS EN 13451-1:2011: Swimming pool equipment.

Steel SHS roof and wall bracing in a single bay completes the lateral system. The brace connections were prefabricated into the glulam portals to limit the fabrication time on site and create a clean aesthetic at the nodes. The steel knee connections include 26 glued in rods in both the glulam column and rafter. Couplers were used in the design for ease of install and to avoid any wet glue assembly on site. The roof purlins are LVL 450×63mm at 1,600crs, which support the Kingspan roofing. The out of plane deflection of the purlins was considerable and became a concern for the roofing contractor in terms of weather proofing. The team added additional framing to stiffen the purlins out of plane.

The Selwyn Sports Centre – NZ-first for digital interactive playground:

The Holmes team completed the design for the Selwyn Sports Centre in two stages—stage one included the main courts and stage two included changing rooms and front and back of house offices. This allowed our project partner, Apollo Projects, to construct the main portal frame and 6,000m2 of brand-new playing area, all while working through the design of the new administration space and changing facilities.

Supply and importing delays, as well as labour shortages due to border lockdowns, affected Selwyn, like many projects during Covid-19. Our team successfully procured and imported the maple-sprung timber floor from Canada and sports equipment from Australia during this time. Originally an Australian engineering firm planned to install the sports equipment. However, by upskilling local tradespeople, the team successfully installed the equipment (including the retractable basketball hoops) solely using local resources. This highly collaborative project has created a fantastic sporting and recreational facility—the team delivered on time and within budget.

Holmes is proud to be part of another rebuild project, after the devastating Canterbury earthquakes. These rebuild projects reinvigorate the local community and bring them together, creating an enjoyable, safe, and sustainable leisure hub for the locals.