Three Aquatic Design Group projects were recently honored by AIA East Bay. Congratulations to all involved!
college of marin miwok aquatic center
indian valley, California
AIA East Bay 2025 Design Awards Honorable Mention
Alongside our partners at ELS Architecture and Urban Design, Aquatic Design Group provided design and engineering services for a new 50-meter deep gutter competition pool, new six-lane x 25-yard rim flow warm-up pool, dive pool, and dive tower for the College of Marin Miwok Center. The pools were designed for joint use and programming by the College of Marin as well as the surrounding community for aquatics classes, swim team practices and meets, and camps. The new state-of-the-art campus recreation and wellness center also includes a gymnasium and cardio, group fitness, and weight lifting area as well as classrooms, locker rooms, administrative and staff spaces, and indoor/outdoor workout studios. Designed to be LEED Platinum-equivalent, the facility incorporates several energy-saving measures, such as utilizing pool covers and reusing the water from the pool backwash process to irrigate the campus quad lawn.
The Miwok Center has also received the 2024 Award of Excellence – Specialized Facility, Community College Facilities Coalition, as well as the 2024 Merit Award for Education, Concrete Masonry Association of California and Nevada, and was featured in the 2024 Athletic Business Magazine Aquatic Design Portfolio.
Santa Ana Memorial Park Master Plan and Aquatic Center
Santa Ana, CA
AIA East Bay 2025 Citation Award
Aquatic Design Group is proud to contribute our design, engineering, and construction observation services for this transformative project — including the replacement of the existing 50-meter pool with a new multi-purpose recreation pool and updated decks and drainage. We look forward to seeing the $30M first phase come to life and the lasting impact this facility will have on the Santa Ana community. Congratulations to our partners at the City of Santa Ana and ELS Architecture and Urban Design + SWA Group.
rengstorff aquatic center
mountain view, ca
AIA East Bay 2025 Citation Award
Alongside our partners at ELS Architecture and Urban Design, Aquatic Design Group provided design, engineering, and construction observation services for Schematic Design through Construction Administration phases for the replacement of the Rengstorff Aquatic Center, which was not meeting the needs of a modern municipal aquatics program and had reached the end of its useful life.
The City of Mountain View chose to design and build its new Rengstorff Aquatic Center in compliance with the city-mandated zero fossil fuel appliances ordinance. This meant the buildings, domestic water, and swimming pool water had to be heated from all electric sources. The Rengstorff Aquatic Center is the first all-electric outdoor municipal aquatic center in the state of California. The facility features a 25-meter by 25-yard swimming pool and a 4,600 square foot activity pool featuring a beach entry, interactive play area, lap and fitness area, and a water slide.
To accomplish this, the project engineers have turned to a multi-pronged electric heating approach. The entire facility is being heated with electric air-to-water exchange heat pumps and PVT, photo-voltaic thermal combination solar panels. The system is sized for the electric heat pumps to provide 60% of the heat load required for the building, showers, and swimming pool water heaters.
The solar panels are a new variety that incorporates both photovoltaic electrical generation and thermal heating of liquids. The solar panels will generate electricity for some of the load of the heat pumps. The thermal heating of the panels is connected to a series of heat exchangers, which are then connected to the heating of the building, heating of domestic water, and exchangers to heat each of the two swimming pools. Each heat load: building, domestic water, and swimming pools, is provided with a pair of heat exchangers, one for the electric chillers and one for the solar thermal heat. The system is expected to maintain typical temperatures for the building, domestic water, and program-related 82-degree water for the 25-meter pool and 85 to 86-degree water for the activity pool.