The Town of Yucca Valley hosted a groundbreaking ceremony to officially break ground on the new Yucca Valley Aquatics and Recreation Center (YV ARC). The HMC Architects design team joined Robert Clapper Construction, Yucca Valley Mayor Robert Lombardo, and prominent local dignitaries to celebrate the 37,200 SF, $20.5 million aquatics center.
The community of Yucca Valley, California began with the digging of the first well by cattleman Mark “Chuck” Warren, establishing itself as a watering station for ranchers. The new Yucca Valley Aquatics Center brings water’s role in building the Yucca Valley community to the forefront. The 3.35-acre site features a single-story building with a natatorium, wet and dry multi-purpose rooms, offices, gymnasium, and support spaces. The intentional engagement to the adjacent Brehm Park facilities seeks synergy between public engagement on both sites. It was important that this facility be an iconic presence in the community, perform well despite wide climactic swings, and support use throughout the year; even in times of triple-digit heat, snow, and high wind. The unique climate influenced everything from site planning to envelope design.
Usually, a fundamental element of building science is to keep water outside of the building – placing a large aquatics facility indoors immediately turns this on its head. The Aquatics and Recreation Center presents a richly textured facade that emphasizes the organic and layered massing of the building. Different surfaces catch the changing light much like the weathered monzonite ridgelines that surround the town. Playful aquatic tones at the ground plane along with peeks into the natatorium space at the pedestrian level emphasize the magnetic draw of water in the desert. Glass walls around the pool space bring in comfortable daylighting and are easily washed with conditioned, dehumidified air. Glazing protected by deep overhangs along with skylights control glare at all but threshold conditions. We used heat rejection to capture waste heat from the dehumidification process and use it for pool heating, decreasing natural gas use. Drought-tolerant and native landscaping features limit water consumption and integrate well with the surrounding desert ecosystem. The indoor swimming facilities will face significant longevity, maintenance, and energy consumption challenges, but our design will help drive down future maintenance and repair costs. To provide some insulation against future operating costs, the design looks to accommodate a significant amount of on-site photo voltaic energy production. A large 320kW photovoltaic array on both the roof and parking areas offset approximately 50 percent of electricity use annually. Overall EUI is reduced to less than half of the baseline, insulating this community from increasingly volatile energy prices and operational costs.
This is the largest investment this community has made of this kind. The result will enrich the local community with a multi-generational, inclusive facility that provides for community membership, prioritizes swim instruction and safety, is efficient in operation, and incorporates sustainable and innovative concepts. YV ARC will be complete in June 2026.
