Nestled at the heart of Manchester’s ‘Educational Quarter’ – a mass of university buildings, colleges and offices which starts at Piccadilly and sprawls across Oxford Road towards Hulme and Moss Side – is the Manchester Aquatics Centre.
Like many of the city’s finest sporting venues (including the City Of Manchester Stadium), the Aquatics Centre was built especially for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, which saw more than 3,800 athletes from 72 nations converge on Manchester for 10 days of world class sport.
Manchester Aquatics Centre was constructed on waste ground that lay empty as a result of old terrace houses being demolished to make way for the relentless spread of business and education in the city, making it an emblem not only of sporting excellence but also urban regeneration.
Inside the centre are two 50-metre pools, both of which can be altered to varying depths and lengths with the use of moveable floors and partitions. The ‘main’ pool is the most impressive, capable of being configured in a vast number of ways to allow for training sessions or top level sporting events. Overlooking both swimming pools is a bank of 1000 spectator seats.
Downstairs in the basement is a dedicated 16 x 50 metre training pool, which lies beneath a curved ceiling designed to convey the effect of waves on water. The Aquatics Centre’s impressive facilities are completed by a dive pool, leisure pool and a health suite (including sauna, fitness centre and sunbeds), all of which make the centre a focal point of local pride.