Polin Waterparks has been chosen as the waterslide supplier to Coventry City Centre Leisure Park in Coventry.
FaulknerBrowns Architects fulfilled the requirements of the historic £36.7 million (US$41.26 million) undertaking. The firm has designed many innovative and award-winning buildings, including Derby Arena, a velodrome for the Pan Am games in Toronto, the canoeing and sailing centres for London’s Olympics in 2012 and an Olympic-standard aquatics center in Dubai. Other key contributors to the project include the main supplier and construction firm the Buckingham Group Contracting and consultant Neuman Aqua.
Set to open in late 2018 or early 2019, the project has been called a “game-changer” by architect Bilge Pakis, design manager of Polin Waterparks. Pakis said: “It is a game-changer in its distinctive design, required to fit the facility into a very tight footprint on a site where Franciscan monks originally constructed a cruciform-shaped church in the early 1200s. Over the years, the site’s space became smaller and smaller as history left its marks.”
King Henry VIII’s dissolution of monasteries in 1538 doomed the original building, leaving only the tower spire, In both cases, the construction of nearby businesses slowly squeezed the borders of the only surviving edifice until the site’s former occupant – an office building – was erected in the 1970s.
Colin Roddy, project director of Buckingham Group Contracting, said: “Yes, the limitations of the space create a very controlled environment in which to work, but we’re experienced in understanding the intricacies of such challenges. It’s also very exciting to be part of creating a centrepiece for the city of Coventry.”