Te Pou Toetoe Linwood Pool

East Christchurch needed a modern aquatic and community hub, and the Council wanted each of its community facilities to have a point of difference of its own. Linwood locals helped set the brief through submissions to the Council, and a manu pool for bombing was on the wish list from the start.

Te Pou Toetoe brought together a 25-metre lane pool, a learners' and toddlers' area, a family spa and the manu pool, with dry spaces including a multipurpose room, a commercial kitchen, courts and a picnic area. The Council set the quality benchmark against its new Taioro QEII centre, and the pool had to meet the same standards for daylighting, acoustics and how the building would run, on a tighter budget.

Christchurch City Council engaged RCP to manage the project. After the concept design, RCP took it to market as a design-and-build contract, with a comprehensive set of Principal's Requirements setting the Council's deliverables while leaving the contractor room to add buildability. RCP held the Council's brief and outputs through that handover.

RCP ran the tender as a series of closed-room sessions, each contractor meeting the Council and design team on their own to interrogate the concept while keeping their own ideas to themselves. Contractors were more open that way, and RCP could work through issues before they were locked into a tender, which brought back a better-priced and more buildable result.

Te Pou Toetoe Linwood Pool opened in 2022, ahead of time and on budget, with New Zealand's first purpose-built, all-season manu pool at its heart, the point of difference the community had asked for.