sports news: University of Cincinnati Campus Recreation Center

Photo courtesy Morphosis

“Weaving as a means of establishing flow to resolve the site’s disparate staccato informs the principal strategy for cohesively incorporating numerous existing structures with the additional square feet of recreational facilities, classrooms, housing, campus store, dining hall, and varsity aquatic center, that are included in this new facility.”

Morphosis

The Campus Recreation Center at the University of Cincinnati ties together incongruous buildings into a unified expression. Both keystone and connector, the building encourages social exchange and harnesses flows onto the campus green.

Photo courtesy Morphosis

The edge of the stadium is repeated in the undulated shape of the housing component. This element forms the urban edge of the complex along the Main Street of the campus leading toward the campus green.

Photo courtesy Morphosis

On the ground level three public pedestrian walkways through the facility allow access and insight to the various programmatic elements on the levels below and above. Main Street develops into a passage through the building’s main entrance lobby, passing a climbing wall and juice bar and inviting views up to the open fitness areas or down over the pools and the basketball gymnasium. Along the east, a “Walk of Fame” establishes a new access to the existing Varsity Basketball arena to the south.

Photo courtesy Morphosis

The covered exterior path overlooks the new basketball gymnasium on the west and the remodeled multipurpose courts in the Field House to the east. To the North side of the stadium a bridge passes a set of new bleachers which create outside seating space at the entrance to the food court overlooking the field.

Photo courtesy Morphosis

Three levels of student housing, organized in four-bedroom apartments, are lifted off the ground on pilotis and look out over the stadium, campus green and the activities along Main Street.

Photo courtesy Morphosis

The 350,000 square feet building, part of the UC Master Plan, includes a Recreation Center with two 2 pools, basketball gymnasium, racquetball courts, multipurpose rooms, fitness and weight lifting areas), a Food Court, Student Housing, a convenience store and varsity gymnasium facilities.