Wrexham Baths Refurbishment

Feb 1998

Wrexham Borough Council first approached SPACE & PLACE to consider the feasibility of retaining the existing Wrexham Baths. The iconic hyperbolic paraboloid roofed building had been a landmark in Wrexham since the 1960’s.

S&P considered the continued use both as a regional swimming facility and for alternative uses such as theatre, cinema, dry leisure complex, exhibitions and conferences, bars and nightclubs. The feasibility confirmed that the best usage was as a regional swimming facility – however, the demand for swimming had changed since the 1960’s and in order to encourage increased usage of the building a number of changes were made. These included:

• Changing the diving pool into a leisure pool, containing river rapids, a geyser pool, spa pool and a rubber ring ride
• Adapting the existing 33m pool length by the inclusion of a traversable boom.  This means that the length can be reduced to 25m for national short course events,  whilst retaining a secondary learner pool. Alternatively the boom could be parked at 30m to meet water polo requirements
• Adjustment of the spectator areas to provide raked seating for over 200
• Retiling of all pools and adjustment of learner pool depths to make lessons more learner friendly.