Located at historic Fort MacArthur, the Hey Rookie Pool project included restoration of the 1943  swimming pool and the construction of a bathhouse, park and a deck area for a future museum. The pool sits on a hillside with a view of Los Angeles Harbor and is connected to the street and nearby barracks by ramps that incorporate historical display areas. The design of the 4,000-sq-ft bathhouse echoes that of the original barracks, and the design team opted to give the exterior and interior concrete walls an aged wooden texture. The curved exterior walls posed a challenge, so the team used a custom resin-based concrete formliner to achieve the desired textured effect. Historic documents of the site identified existing tunnels and the design team worked around the underground structures. While doing site grading, however, crews hit a new underground tunnel not shown in the map. A historic preservation consultant was brought in, and the team kept the tunnel in place, redesigning the site and rerouting a ramped path. “They had to basically move the whole project over,” says one judge. “We think that would cause a lot of angst.”

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