As the Paris Olympics kick off, much of the attention around water sports has revolved around the attempt to make the long-polluted Seine River clean enough for competition.
But inside La Defense Arena, the largest indoor venue in Europe, a massive modular pool project will showcase another sustainable advance: Olympic-sized pools that can be assembled, broken down, and reused elsewhere.
Two temporary, modular pools measuring 50-by-25 meters (164-by-82 feet), manufactured by Italian company Mythra, will host all the swimming events and the water polo championship of the 33rd Olympiad, as well as swimming events for the forthcoming Paralympic Games.
The installation, which started on May 20 after Taylor Swift’s run of concerts in the city concluded, took 36 days. The pools required 20 semi-trucks worth of panels, material, and parts, including 47 tons of stainless steel components and pool walls made with partially recycled PVC.
After the games are over, the structures will be disassembled, then moved and reassembled as permanent neighborhood pools within the Sevran and Bagnolet Est Ensemble neighborhoods in Paris. It’s actually the third life for this particular piscine; the pieces originally formed the pool used in the 2012 Olympics in London.
Utilizing this method in Paris will help support the overall sustainability goals of the Games. The modular system will cut carbon emissions in half compared to traditional steel construction, and 100% of the flooring membrane will be recycled.
A similar repurposing happened with another Myrtha Pool, the one used by the U.S. swimming team for trials in Indianapolis in June. The two pools assembled inside Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts football team, will later be re-assembled in the Cayman Islands and Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Myrtha has been refining its modular stainless steel swimming pool technology since 1961, according to John Ireland, the firm’s U.S. chief technical officer. The now-global firm has provided a number of pools for multiple Olympics since the 1996 Atlanta Games, and assembles roughly 1,500 pools annually. Many of the competition-sized models include movable floors that allow the same structure to be utilized for multiple events, from diving to water polo. The pools at La Defense will actually be altered on the night of August 4 to prepare for water polo competition that starts the following day.
“Coordination with the venue and ancillary subs always requires the most preparation and effort,” said Ireland. “We pay special attention to the design preparations years in advance of an event to ensure everything from the structural supports to utility interfaces are planned, checked and then rechecked to ensure a flawless delivery. “
This year’s Olympic installation includes the debut of the Myrtha Breathe system, which utilizes a technique borrowed from the wastewater industry to remove disinfection byproducts, such as chloramines and halomethanes, from the traditional chemical cleaning process. Air is sent through porous pipes that sit at the base of a gutter surrounding the pool, creating fine bubbles that absorb the chemical by-products, which are captured in the channel and suctioned out. The process will cut down the energy needed to clean the pool, and remove chemicals from the air shared by the 40,000 fans inside La Defense.