Published: 8 October 2025

Safety First in Aquatic Facility Design

Why Every Project Should Undertake a Design Assessment

When councils, developers and architects embark on designing a new aquatic facility or refurbishing an existing one, they face a complex set of priorities. Delivering high-quality spaces for community connection, water safety education, aquatic sport fields of play, meeting sustainability targets, and ensuring accessibility and inclusion are all vital outcomes. Yet above all of these considerations, safety must come first.

Safety is the foundation that underpins every other objective. It enables inclusive programs to run, sport to thrive, and communities to enjoy the water with confidence. Without a design that is fundamentally safe, all other ambitions are compromised.

That is why Royal Life Saving Australia recommends that every proposed aquatic facility development or refurbishment undergo an Aquatic Facility Design Assessment before plans are finalised. This process is a critical step in ensuring that facilities are designed to the highest safety standards, delivering long-term benefits for users, staff and the communities they serve.

A Risk-Led Approach to Safer Aquatic Environments

An RLS Aquatic Facility Design Assessment is an expert review of architectural plans against relevant regulations, standards, and best practice guidance, including the Guidelines for Safe Pool Operations. It measures proposed designs against safety expectations and operational realities—identifying potential hazards, resolving sightline or supervision challenges, and aligning built form with how the facility will actually be used.

Compliance with Industry Guidelines

Specifically, the service addresses the GSPO Safe Design Guideline: SD3 – Pre-Design Phase of Aquatic Facilities. This guideline outlines how owners, operators, designers and builders should collaborate to:

• Establish a shared understanding of safety requirements from project inception
• Incorporate risk assessments, legislation, codes of practice, and incident data into design decisions
• Ensure layouts support safe supervision, maintenance, and emergency response
• Integrate safety needs with recreational and operational objectives

By identifying and addressing hazards before construction begins, a Design Assessment helps to design out risk rather than retrofit solutions later. This not only reduces safety exposure but can also lower operational costs, streamline staffing, and extend the facility’s lifecycle.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

With public pool redevelopment projects in Australia ranging from less than $5 million to well over $130 million, the stakes are high. It is significantly more expensive to rectify safety oversights during construction or after opening than it is to address them at the planning stage. A Design Assessment ensures that potential risks and operational inefficiencies are resolved before they become costly mistakes.

The service also provides valuable assurance for architects, project owners and councils that a facility’s design aligns with industry standards and incorporates lessons learned from previous projects. By benchmarking designs against best practice and real-world operational experience, Royal Life Saving helps prevent repeated errors, improve user safety, and support the long-term success of the facility.

Independent Facilitation of Operator Consultation

One of the most overlooked aspects of aquatic facility design is the importance of meaningful and objective operator input. Operational teams understand the day-to-day realities of supervision, programming, maintenance and risk management — knowledge that can profoundly influence both safety outcomes and financial performance. Royal Life Saving can facilitate an objective and structured operator consultation as part of the design assessment process, ensuring that designs are practical, safe, and financially viable from the outset.

Benefits of a Design Assessment

• Risk mitigation from the outset – Identify and resolve safety hazards before construction begins
• Operational efficiency – Incorporate supervision and staffing considerations into the design, reducing long-term costs
• User-centred design – Ensure facilities integrate safety and recreational needs seamlessly
• Regulatory compliance – Demonstrate adherence to applicable legislation, standards and guidelines
• Stronger governance – Show evidence of a structured risk management process aligned with WHS duties
• Assurance – Provide architects and project owners with confidence that designs meet industry benchmarks
• Viability – Support financial sustainability through practical, operator-informed design decisions
• Continued improvement – Ensure that innovations are appropriately considered taking into account learnings from adoption of new technologies (e.g. AI drowning detection systems, moveable floors, swim walls etc).

“Safety isn’t a trade-off or an afterthought — it is the foundation that enables inclusion, sustainability and great aquatic experiences to succeed. An inexpensive and timely Design Assessment can remove years of operational pain, reduce risk, and ultimately protect communities and staff.”
— Marty Moran, National Manager – Industry Safety, Royal Life Saving Australia

Facilities Leading the Way

Across Australia, dozens of councils, schools, developers and community organisations have already worked with Royal Life Saving Australia and its state and territory member organisations to integrate safety into their projects through Design Assessments. The table below provides a snapshot of recent projects over the past two years.

Aquatic Facility Design Assessments (2023–2025)

These projects demonstrate widespread recognition that safe design is not just a compliance requirement — it is a strategic decision that protects lives, reduces liability, and ensures that aquatic facilities deliver their full community value for decades to come.

How and when to Engage Royal Life Saving

It is generally recommended to involve Royal Life Saving early in the design process, well before detailed design. This can help avoid significant waste in time for architects and other expert consultants designing to the pool owner’s brief.

While the cost varies depending on the level of engagement and the number of activities, it reflects the non-profit nature of Royal Life Saving and is not prohibitive to any project budget.

To learn more about the Aquatic Facility Design Assessment service or to discuss a project, visit:
www.royallifesaving.com.au/Aquatic-Risk-and-Guidelines/safety-assessments/aquatic-facility-design-assessment

Enquiries submitted through the website will be directed to the relevant Royal Life Saving state or territory team for follow-up.