Custom Perforated Metal Adds Punch to California Multi-Sports Complex

Custom Round Hole Perforated Metal creates stunning screen with silhouette sports figures signifying each school athletic program.

West Covina Aquatic Sports Complex

In ongoing efforts to provide safe and high-quality learning environments, a school district in West Covina, California, set out to upgrade its aging aquatic center with an Olympic-size pool. They decided to combine the modernized swimming pool with adjacent sports venues. The result is a building designed around shared recreational facilities strategically located on the Edgewood High School campus called West Covina USD Sports Complex.

To match their ambitious initiative, West Covina Unified School District (USD) envisioned a dramatic entrance. It would feature decorative metal screens that would give the sports complex security, thus a clear sense of arrival while signifying its sports-related purpose.

Additionally, since the new complex would serve students of Edgewood High School and West Covina High School, their guests, and public events, the planners knew to keep high-volume traffic in mind. Therefore, these areas also needed varying patterns of specialty metal.

Specialty Metals Added Flair To Function

The project team consisted of the school district, WLC Architects of Rancho Cucamonga, CA, and Balfour Beatty as the general contractor. They imagined the benefits of incorporating Specialty Metal products into the design, including Round Hole Perforated Metal and Square Hole Perforated Metal. The team understood integrating these products enhances the venue’s function and adds flair to the facility design.

How Custom Perforated Metal Played an Essential Role

Plans for the sports complex’s bold entrance include showcasing the venue’s activities, including track and field, swimming, basketball, and baseball, even when backlit at night. The team’s design for the decorative screen/sign combination called for qualities of Perforated Metal: a durable material that could be easily transformed, offering filtration and ventilation.

In addition to the decorative signage screen, custom Perforated Metal plays a functional and aesthetic role in other areas throughout the complex. This includes metal security doors at the gate entrances where Square Perforated Metal infill panels provide safety, light, and ventilation. Likewise, custom Perforated Metal panels screen the restroom entry doors and enhance the locker doors with ventilation, light, and durability.

The Hole Challenge

Because these design features face year-round use and exposure to outdoor elements, the Perforated Metal had to be durable, corrosion-resistant, and low maintenance. Likewise, the material needed aesthetic and decorative attributes. All are characteristics of McNICHOLS® Perforated Metal.

This need for customization meant finding a supplier that is geographically accessible with knowledgeable fabrication specialists who customize products to specific needs.

The challenge was finding two patterns of custom Round Hole Perforated Metal. One for the backdrop and the other for the sports figure silhouettes, with enough contrast to make the sports figures “pop” visually.

The Hole Solution

McNICHOLS provided guidance to the architect whose original CAD drawings specified custom Perforated Metal. However, the hole sizes and open area were too similar in pattern to create enough contrast between the backdrop and sports figures to achieve the desired visual effect during the day and at night.

By recommending differing spaced hole patterns based on available tooling layouts, McNICHOLS helped direct the architect to reformat the design. This allows the sports figures to produce a more dramatic variance between the background perforations and the sports figures.

Since the Perforated Metal panels in specified areas are highly exposed, each custom metal sheet was powder coated with a zinc-rich primer and a single coat of polyester of standard RAL color.

McNICHOLS provided a total of 29 custom panels of Round Hole and Square Hole Perforated Metal for the project. Sixteen Round Hole Perforated panels were installed for the decorative entry screen/sports figures. Nine panels have use inside the complex for the restroom screens and locker doors. The remaining four custom Square Hole Perforated Metal sheets installed above the security doors at the entrances.

A Vision Achieved with Custom Perforated Metal

With a combination of custom Perforated Metal products, a well-thought-out design, and a solution-oriented specialty metals provider, the sports complex is seen as a beacon to academic and athletic excellence. Now, students and the West Covina area community can enjoy this new facility for years to come.