Pool Area Lighting Design
Our favourite side is poolside.
Given the various pool kinds, hours of operation, size of the pool deck, and unique National and State safety and health code light level requirements, designing the lighting for the pool area can be difficult. Pool area lighting design may be creatively and technically executed to make pools as atmospheric as they are useful with a thorough understanding of fixtures, optics, code requirements, mathematics, visual perception, and human-centered design.
Three factors made it difficult to design the Eldorado Hotel Pool and Spa: the New Mexico Night Sky Protection Act strictly controls light pollution into the sky; Santa Fe's strict historic district regulations do not permit light fixtures to be visible from the street below the second-level pool deck; and the brief called for an elegant view of the pool area from the surrounding guestrooms without causing an unwelcome light spill into guestrooms after dark.
Eldorado Hotel's Spa & Pool
Our team used low-level levels of light by hanging luminaires on surrounding walls, screens, buildings, and within the pool perimeter to illuminate the pool deck rather than employing pole light or bollards that clog the pool floor and distract from the important visitor views. Full cut-off fixtures and hidden sources, such as ornate sconces, low-level step lights, shielded perimeter bullet lights, and linear accent lighting, define the space and add to an enticing view from the bedrooms above. We designed a control system to enable lighting to be fine-tuned to the desired levels for ambiance, with an automatic reduction to a very minimal composed scheme at 10 pm - mitigating night sky and guestroom light pollution. We also developed a scheme of low-profile high output floodlights mounted to the tops of surrounding pergolas to cover the deck with a brighter layer of illumination to meet code.
Pool, Scott Carpenter
Scott Carpenter Pool was created to celebrate the pioneering spirit of M. Scott Carpenter, a well-known astronaut and aquanaut who was a resident of Boulder, Colorado. In order to complement the building and tie it into the general space and water motif, fun and playful elements were incorporated, including crescent-shaped fixtures, wave form patterns, sunburst patterns, and backlit constellations. Three new outdoor pools—a 50-meter lap pool, a leisure pool/lazy river, and a spray ground—as well as a new bathhouse were added during recent renovations.
Given that the outdoor lap pool is used for lap swimming after dark, one issue was to provide sufficient lighting while adhering to COBECC (City of Boulder Energy Conservation Code) regulations. To fulfil the Recommended Practise for Sports and Recreational Area Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) We required eight 20-foot-tall poles with an output of 30,000 to 36,000 lumens each to light the target illuminance levels for outdoor swimming and water sports, Class IV Competition (10 FC average at the sea surface with a max/min ratio less than or equal to 4:1). These are automated to turn on at nightfall and turn off at the conclusion of business using a relay panel. A wall switch for manual override and dimming was also installed.
Pool at Regis Jesuit High School
Our team had a unique opportunity with this project because one of the designers was a swimmer at Regis Jesuit High School (RJHS). "Creating the new lighting for the pool at my high school was a true honour. It holds a lot of special memories for me. Although leaving The Bubble felt like leaving a childhood home, I am overjoyed that swimmers in the future will be able to train and compete in a far better and more welcoming environment. — Project Designer Moriah Trantham
Time for a pop In "The Bubble." The white inflated cover over the swimming pool at RJHS, known as The Bubble, was replaced by a white ribbed membrane structure after it had reached the end of its useful life. Our objective was to design for a membrane that could only withstand a certain number of penetrations. The only locations we could attach illumination were the ribs of the building, and all the other systems had to share them. When the HVAC duct was not placed as it had been planned and ended up obscuring the illumination, this created some additional difficulties. We went out to the site to measure the light levels and make sure we still satisfied the regulatory standards because the change would have been expensive to repair. The pool was nevertheless adequately lit even though we were unable to aim the fixtures as initially anticipated.
Western YMCA
Without proper coordination and effort between the lighting designer, mechanical engineer, architect, and contractors, a pool lighting project cannot be effective. - Senior Project Designer Mio Stanley
There are many particular difficulties with indoor recreational pools. In particular, it can be challenging to coordinate the placement of light fixtures, and care must be made to reduce any occupants' exposure to uncomfortable or disruptive glare. Additionally, in accordance with the codes set by the AHJ on the project, the lighting system must ultimately fulfil code-required light levels and energy use limitations.
There was not enough area to mount side-by-side at the Wheatlands YMCA lap pool because of the limited space and requirement to share it with the ductwork. We requested that the contractor create an additional framework underneath the ductwork so that the lights could mount below the ducts and above the pool deck in order to work around the ducts. Combination direct-indirect lighting were used to direct light more effectively over the pool deck while also providing swimmers with indirect, glare-free light over the water surface. To further increase the lighting's efficacy, the architect requested that all buildings and ducting at the ceiling be painted white. The lights along the windows were modified to orient some of the light elements to be focused away from the window, for a more pleasant viewing experience, in order to prevent glare into the windows of an upper-level viewing area.
