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For many years, the University offered little student services and recreation programming for a 17,000-person student body that spends an average of 12-hour days at school. A detailed analysis of the campus helped identify a significant shortage of student life and student services space. To address this, a new Recreation and Wellness Center was identified as part of the first stage of the campus development. As the project transitioned into its programming and design stages, a Building User Group was formed to identify key programmatic drivers. Members of the university’s student services, academic support, recreation and athletics departments in addition to administration student representatives took active part in workshopping concepts for the building’s program and organization.
The project redefined the character and experience of the campus core by infilling a leftover parcel, turning back of house areas next to the highway into a new urban front, and more importantly, redeveloping the ornamental landscape of the parcel into a highly programmable hardscape plaza of civic scale. The building and surrounding landscape integrate and provide accessibility to previously disparate renovated spaces, like the new ground floor pedestrian concourse between the surrounding plazas and gardens, new access to the underground Zum multi-purpose space, and multi-level connections to the renovated dining and student space pavilion and terrace. The complex regularly welcomes the wider, local community, providing access to indoor and outdoor recreational spaces.
To address water scarcity, the country’s biggest environmental challenge, the building and landscape conserve and reuse water through low flow fixtures, greywater reuse for irrigation, stormwater detention and reuse as part of the installation of vegetated roofs, and large scale planters at terrace and plaza spaces. The project employs passive and active conditioning measures and renewable energy generation to reduce its carbon footprint and target EUI 79% below baseline. The rooftop PV supports campus-wide on-site energy generation. This is the highest efficiency building on campus and tracks LEED Gold certification.
Highly-active, interconnected indoor and outdoor environments create a new student life hub. The plaza, which also supports major events on campus, links three different underutilized campus quads and extends into the building’s porous ground floor. The building hovers over an internal courtyard, which helps to funnel the public realm deep into the building across multiple levels. Across its central atrium, building stairs and bridges connect uses and levels, promoting an informal navigation and wayfinding experience through alternative circulation routes. The transparency of the spaces provide visual connections between uses, making them easily accessible to users. Social gathering areas accompany specific program spaces to promote a natural convergence of users and to extend programmed activities into informal meetings and the pursuit of other activities. The result is a broad portfolio of uses and spaces that exceeds any prior student life offered by the campus. Among those uses are active and passive recreation, wellness destinations (physical therapy, nutrition, mental health, group exercise), new dining alternatives, club activities (dance, theater, large scale as well as intimate performances,music practice, sports), and among the new spaces are a forum, terraces, a flexible theater, a multipurpose gym, indoor and outdoor plazas, and a walking indoor-outdoor circuit.
“The Wellness Center has been an instant success for the campus. Students spend time in the building at all hours of the day, making it the ideal meeting point to gather and participate in all sorts of activities before, in-between and after classes. You can see entire processions of students making their way to it across campus in ways we never saw before, the building has become their place.” - Quote by University Rector
At Sasaki, defining the future of place is a collective, contextual, and values-driven exercise. We bring together the best of architecture, interior design, planning and urban design, space planning, landscape architecture, and civil engineering to shape the places in which we live. Out of our multiple offices, we are changing the contours of place and redefining what’s possible along the way. We are a diverse practice of over 300 professionals who share a singular passion for creating authentic, equitable, and inspiring places. We challenge ourselves to think beyond today and into the future, delivering architecture and design that catalyzes communities, promotes quality and craft, and engages people in an inclusive and welcoming built environment. From public realm to private development, civic spaces to campus settings, Sasaki is imagining a future where good design creates memorable experiences and ample opportunities for all.
