Iqaluit Aquatic Centre

City of Iqaluit, Nunavut, MB
Construction Cost: $32,500,000 CAD
Area / Square Feet: 34,445
Occupancy Date: December 2016

The central vision for Iqaluit Aquatic Centre was to create an accessible space that promotes healthy and active living, serving as a hub for this Canadian city’s recreational culture. Visitors can access a leisure pool, a waterslide, a whirlpool, a lap pool, a fitness center and group exercise studios.

The entire building features a unique foundation that is suspended on rock-socketed piles, providing a one-meter open space between grade and the building’s soffit. Construction in the north has its own set of complications, including limited resources, a short outdoor construction season and off-site storage of building materials.

The primary mechanical challenge was to offer a pool with comfortable temperature and humidity levels while operating efficiently in the minus-40-degree-Celsius Nunavut environment. This was accomplished by delivering fresh air directly to a glazed plenum at each window, keeping humidity away from the windows and providing the infrastructure to use heat recovered from electrical generators to heat the pools.

The aquatic center was designed with the goal of achieving LEED Silver certification. The vision for the center focused on minimizing operating costs, minimizing glare in the pools, recycling pool water where possible and incorporating climate change adaptations.