Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center at Washington University in St. Louis building, Architecture USA
Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center
WashU St. Louis Building: American Campus Architecture design by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson architects
Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center at Washington University in St. Louis
Design: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson architects
Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America.
Washu’s Bohlin Cywinski Jackson-designed Sumers Recreation Center Opens Today
Photos : Daniel Lee/Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Nov 1 + Oct 29, 2016
Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center at Washington University in St. Louis
Philadelphia, PA (October 28, 2016) – The new Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center at Washington University in St. Louis, designed by well-known architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, opens its doors today during a campus celebration and ribbon cutting ceremony. The new facility, which reimagines the University’s historic Francis Gymnasium, adds 66,000-square-feet and creates a new gateway to a comprehensive recreation and sports complex.
The new Sumers Recreation Center, once the venue for the 1904 Olympic games, preserves the original gym facade and revitalizes its interiors. This was accomplished through the removal of preexisting half-level floors, revealing a dramatic three-story space navigated by an entrance bridge welcoming visitors inside and offering views of the activities taking place within the open, sky-lit building. Newly inserted floor plates align with the existing athletics complex to create a seamless transition between spaces, as well as direct connections to the nearby landscape and playing fields.
“WashU is a campus shaped by venerable buildings consisting of granite, limestone and brick, and we certainly wished to honor that tradition,” says Tom Kirk, Design Principal from Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s Philadelphia office. “We desired to contrast the exterior with a light-filled, delicately detailed, and highly-transparent recreation center that welcomes visitors and enhances their everyday experience.”
The Sumers Recreation Center is located on a prominent pedestrian axis, known as William Greenleaf Eliot Way, which stretches from the University’s distinguished Graham Chapel to the old Francis Gymnasium archway. By reopening the archway, which was shuttered as part of a 1980s expansion project, the Sumers Recreation Center reestablishes the centrality of Eliot Way, leading visitors from the heart of campus and into a state-of-art fitness facility, adjacent wellness and recreation suites, multipurpose rooms, a spinning facility, café and lounge.
“The new complex is awe inspiring, and the faces of visitors light up when they enter the building,” describes Associate Vice Chancellor and University Architect James Kolker. “The building is filled with light, transparency, energy and beautifully detailed materials that together creates a new model for architectural expression within our historic context.”
Today’s celebration and ribbon cutting ceremony is an all-day event meant to educate the campus community about the many recreational activities available to all visitors, not just varsity athletes, with the new Sumers Recreation Center.
“You have your residence halls, you have your academic buildings, you have the (Danforth) University Center,” Director of Recreation Sports and Campus Fitness Bryan Lenz said. “The Sumers Recreation Center will serve as another one of those hubs of student activity.”
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, founded in 1965, is a national architecture practice noted for elegant and humane design, ranging from modest houses to large academic, civic, cultural and corporate buildings. To date, the firm has received more than 650 regional, national and international awards for design, including three AIA Top Ten Green Project Awards and the AIA Architecture Firm Award.
The US architecture firm is well known for its work with Apple, designing stores such as the iconic Fifth Avenue cube in New York City and flagship stores worldwide, as well as colleges and universities across the country, including Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Caltech, University of Illinois, and Williams College. For more information, please visit BCJ.com.
Collaborators
Hastings & Chivetta Architects, Inc., Associated Architect; KPFF Consulting Engineers, Structural Engineering; Buro Happold Consulting Engineers PC, Code Consulting; McClure Engineering, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Fire Protection Engineering; DTLS, Landscape Architecture; Cole & Associates, Civil Engineering; Kiku Obata & Company, Signage; Randy Burkett Lighting Design, Inc., Lighting Design.
Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center at Washington University in St. Louis information / images received 281016
Location: Washington University in St. Louis, USA
Missouri Architecture
Green Air installation at Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis
Design: Nomad Studio, landscape architecture
photograph : Alise O’Brien Photography
Green Air, Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis – 22 Aug 2016
Place is the Space is Unprecedented Collaboration with Museum Architect Brad Cloepfil
photograph : Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM)
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
Missouri Building Photos
Missouri Architecture
Saint Louis Art Museum Expansion
Design: David Chipperfield Architects
Saint Louis Art Museum – St. Louis Building
Washington University School of Engineering & Applied Science, St. Louis
Design: RMJM Hillier architects
Washington University Building
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art – Extension, Kansas (included here as its just over the border)
Design: Steven Holl Architects
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art building
American Architecture Design – chronological list
American Institute of Architects Gold Medal
Major Louis Kahn Buildings
Yale Center for British Art, Chapel St, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
photograph : Public Domain, http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1252452
Yale Center for British Art Building
Fine Arts Center, School, and Performing Arts Theater, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
photo courtesy wikimedia commons
Fine Arts Center, School, and Performing Arts Theater in Fort Wayne – 8 Apr 2016
Phillips Exeter Academy Library, Exeter, New Hampshire, USA
photograph by Rohmer at en.wikipedia
Phillips Exeter Academy Library
Yale University Art Gallery
Louis Kahn / Polshek Partnership Architects, LLP
Yale University Art Gallery
Website: Washington University in St. Louis
Comments / photos for the Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center at Washington University in St. Louis – American Architecture in Missouri USA page welcome.