The Wizard of Water

Victoria’s Business Report, May 1992
By Gery Lemon

With waves, waterfalls and bubbles, architect Vic Davies shows the world how the municipal rec centre can churn a profit.

Vic Davies has achieved something akin to folk hero status in New Zealand where front page articles refer to him as a “world reknowned architect.”

To readers of local newspapers in villages and cities across that country he is becoming a familiar figure, known there as the Imagineer.

And throughout B.C., especially in the Lower Mainland, just about anyone who has had a kid beg to ride the waves in a wave pool or splash around under an indoor water fall or twirl in a vortex is familiar with the work of Vic Davies.

Vic who?

Sad to say, Davies is less well known at home than he is in other parts of the country, indeed, the world. Which wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t think Victoria needed more of what he does better than anyone else in the world: leisure pools.

When the Commonwealth Games pool opens in Saanich it will feature a component of Davies’ work and, you can bet, after the athletes have gone home that’s where you’ll find most of the residents of Greater Victoria will do their splashing. The dedicated swimmers will churn out laps in the 50 meter competitive pool and youngsters will take lessons in the warm up pool but the fun will be had in a wet wonderland where waves will crash against a boat, where children can ride the swells aboard lily pads and a water slide will catapult people downward.

It’s no accident Davies has given new meaning to the concept of municipal recreation centres. Pools were kind of where he got his start as an architect. For his thesis in 1968 he designed a national recreation centre for Wales and the complex was built. A 12 year dry spell in which he practiced general architecture followed.

He broke back into pools when he was awarded the contract to design the Maple Ridge Leisure Centre featuring Canada’s first leisure pool. The centre, which has since won national and provincial design awards, became a prototype of what a municipal leisure complex could be. With its 25 metre, six lane pool, it met the needs of swimming enthusiasts, swim clubs and those in lessons, but the leisure area was what local residents came to again and again. The free form leisure pool addressed the desire for simple fun in the water. At one end was a water slide and at the side a waterfall cascaded intermittently. A tots pool rounded out the family component and a large whirlpool became a gathering place. Besides the water facilities the centre also has saunas, racquetball, and squash courts, a restaurant and bar, a fitness centre and the country’s first family change rooms.

Because there was no precedent for this type of facility there was no way to judge how well used the facility would be, but not even the most optimistic observers could have guessed its success. At the time the facility was built the population of Maple Ridge was 30,000. The leisure centre recorded an astounding 30,000 people per month were using the facility.

“We’d hit on a formula,” said Davies. The municipal recreation complex could not only hold its own but make money.

When Davies was contracted to build a leisure centre in Sparwood with a population of 5,000, based on the Maple Ridge experience he expected the monthly use to equal the population. Another surprise: 10,000 people per month were using the centre.

Throughout B.C. the Davies design was in demand. The leisure centre concept meant every segment of the population could make use of the municipal recreation facility. The leisure pools were naturals for kids and as Davies’ list of pools has grown so have the toys that have gone into them. The McMillan leisure pool in Abbotsford has a rubber rock which sprays water and attracts fun; the Grand Forks Aquatic Centre has a play lagoon, bubble machine, fountain sprays and raindrops unit; the WC Blair Recreation Centre in Langley has Canada’s first wave machine, a raindrop unit, bubble machine, slide, waterfall, rubber rock and flume water slide.

The new leisure centre in Tumbler Ridge with its play lagoon with palm trees and exotic birds is a tropical paradise in a town snow bound much of the year. The leisure pool in Smithers is showing 95 per cent returns on the investment. The town of Gold River – which has the Island’s only leisure pool to date – has embraced its centre.

With each of his leisure pools – Maple Ridge was first and he has designed or consulted on 20 others – Davies calls on a standard package. Each leisure centre involves water, saunas and swirlpools, a steam room, fitness centre and poolside café.

And from there the ways of creating fun with water are as limitless as imagination. “We’re always looking for new ways to move water”, he said, “hence such people attractors as waterfalls, vortexes, sprays and bubble machines.”

It was this growing reputation as a man who knew how to design with water that led to Davies’ invitation to speak at a pool design conference in New Zealand. He didn’t know the interest he had piqued until he returned and “the fax machine was red hot” with requests for information. New Zealanders wanted to know more about Davies’ leisure pool concept. They’d liked what they’d heard, how sprays and waterfalls, vortexes and bubbles could turn aquatic centres into fun and profit centres. But they weren’t completely prepared to buy into the Davies formula and didn’t want some high falootin’ architect from abroad telling them what they needed.

For Davies, a man who had developed and then cornered a design market, this presented a challenge. When he took his bag of pool tricks to New Zealand a second time, he went not as an architect but packaged as Vic Davies, Imagineer.

“A bit of Disney,” said Davies of his Kiwi title. And they loved it.

Leisure centres designed by the Imagineer will soon be dotted throughout the islands. The mayor of New Plymouth is sailing around New Zealand in an effort to raise money for that community’s aquatic centre. A village an hour from Christ Church sees its proposed leisure centre as a means to attract some tourist dollars from the city. Leisure pools are at various stages – from design to construction – in 14 New Zealand communities, all of them bearing the signature of the Imagineer.

Municipalities world wide are noting how Davies’ style is altering the face of recreational and aquatic centres. Where a standard municipal pool sees 30 to 35 per cent returns, a Davies leisure centre to date means 85 to 95 per cent returns on the dollar. In Smithers, a leisure centre completed less than two years ago is already turning a healthy profit.

Davies has played a role in over 40 aquatics centres which have either been completed or are under construction and has prepared feasibility studies on dozens more as the world has discovered him. The Japanese have taken notice and the leisure pool concept could well reach that country. And when he is the key note speaker at a pool conference in Australia in September on his return. Already that country has noticed Davies’ ways with water. The city of Sydney, host of the Year 2000 Olympic Games, has asked Davies to consult on the leisure pool component of the $150 million Olympic pool facility.

As technology has advanced, so have Davies’ abilities to do more with water expanded. Virtually all of his new pools are ozone treated, using minimal chlorine. And he is convinced all that can be done with water isn’t confined to its liquid form. Davies has been contracted to design a $70 million recreation complex for the proposed Coquitlam town centre. As he gave neighboring Maple Ridge the country’s first leisure pool, Coquitlam will have Canada’s first free form ice arena. No sheet of ice rink will this be. Rather it will be more ice park than ice rink, featuring varying levels of ice. A dance area and machine made snow. This will be the first centre in Canada to feature both Davies’ specialities: leisure pool and freeform ice arena.

Davies, the Imagineer, in his role as the world’s leisure centre master has brought smart marketing to the world of architecture.

And developing areas in which people can simply have fun, is fun.

“It’s better than building a crematorium,” deadpanned Davies.

Indeed.