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Invigorating, by design
Architects create dynamic hub for fitness and recreation

By Tim Stoddard

	The 35-foot climbing wall, spanning two floors of the FitRec Center, will be used for classes, clubs, and ROTC training exercises. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

Sneak in first thing in the morning, before thousands of students, faculty, and staff are coursing through it, and the new Fitness and Recreation Center still hums with energy. Visitors get a sense of the building’s vim and vigor soon after entering the lobby, as the walkway curves around a 35-foot climbing wall in the center of a two-story rotunda. The craggy surface tumbles down to the base of the circular atrium, where a grand stair ascends past a juice bar to a four-court gymnasium one floor above street level. A wall of windows in the lobby leans out slightly over the competition pool one story below.

With its curves, its swooping verticality, and its abundant natural lighting, the building’s interior appears to be in constant motion. “We dreamed of an open and energetic facility that would showcase a wide variety of activities and invite the campus community to take time out of each day to refresh their bodies and their spirits,” says Warin Dexter, the director of the department of physical education, recreation, and dance (PERD). “That’s what we’ve created: an environment that facilitates the connection between physical fitness, academic success, and personal well-being.”

Many visitors seeing the interior of the building for the first time may be surprised by the proximity of its different spaces. From the outside, the Commonwealth Avenue building is an impressive rectangular structure of brick and stone and glass, but the 270,000 square feet inside feels intimate. “One of the goals in our design was to help you see as many activities as possible as soon as you enter the front door,” says Tim Whitney, a principal architect in charge of sports planning at Cannon Design, the firm that designed the Fitness and Recreation Center. From any given point in the building, in fact, a person can see two or three different activities. Someone who is accustomed to making a beeline to and from a treadmill in a more conventional, drab gym, for example, here will be surrounded by enticing alternatives in adjacent rooms. Not only does this format promote trying new forms of exercise, Whitney says, but it also enlivens familiar workout routines by invigorating the visual environment. The eighth-mile jogging track is a case in point: longer and wider than most indoor tracks in the country, the four-lane path skirts the upper perimeter of the four-court gym and then shoots into the rotunda, where it hugs the curving glass wall on the second floor. “Going around in circles, in my opinion, is maybe one of the most boring things anyone can do,” Dexter says. “This track spikes your energy, and the building just completely eliminates the boredom factor.”

As it hugs the curving glass wall of the Tsai Fitness Center, the four-lane indoor track offers views of Commonwealth Avenue, the rotunda, and the adjacent four-court gymnasium. The eighth-mile track, one of the longest nationwide, skirts the upper edge of the gym and shades its floor from sunlight entering through extra-large exterior windows. Photo by Vernon Doucette

It also beckons passersby with a glass facade that curves around a two-story fitness area, with numerous exercise machines looking out over Commonwealth Avenue. “You can look through these big glass walls and see all kinds of activity,” Whitney says. “In a way, it’s kind of the inverse of the Agganis Arena next door, which is more of an internalized building, focused in on itself. The recreation center is pushing all of its activities out to the exterior walls.”

While many fitness centers follow a linear layout, which is slightly more efficient in terms of floor space but less interesting visually, Dexter says, the new building has a radial design. The entrance to the L-shaped structure is a rotunda at the hub of two spokes, one pushing north with an aquatic complex and the other extending east with two gymnasia, racquetball and squash courts, multipurpose rooms, a dance theater, and offices. To link these vast horizontal spaces together, the architects took advantage of the unusual verticality of the site. “The actual footprint of the site is below Commonwealth Avenue,” Whitney explains. “You enter the building at the midlevel, which creates a great opportunity to be able to look down and up.”

Most collegiate fitness centers have only two levels, but BU’s is stacked on five levels, with two below the lobby and two above (including the jogging track). The spaces are connected visually with “a lot of glass and a lot of natural lighting,” Whitney says. “The views in all directions create a wow factor, and people quickly find out where things are without having to traipse down long corridors.”

When Dexter first sat down with architects from Cannon Design in 2001, he faced the daunting task of accommodating the requests of some 400 different student organizations involved in recreation or physical activity. “We also wanted to design something that would not only draw students to our campus, but also keep them here,” he says. “I think BU and Cannon have created an architectural landmark, a real jewel that ties the campus together.”

“It’s not just a fancy gym”

Universities and colleges around the country are in the midst of a fitness building boom, Dexter says, investing some $5 billion in high-profile fitness centers to attract prospective students and faculty to their campuses and keep them happy and healthy once they’re there. Northeastern, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and MIT are just a few that have erected fitness centers in recent years. But BU’s $97 million Fitness and Recreation Center stands apart in several respects, Dexter says: “This building is one of the newest of a new breed of recreation centers. It’s not just a fancy gym.”

	With its spiraling stair and curving glass facade, the two-story Tsai Fitness Center is designed to be the center of energy in the Fitness and Recreation Center. Photo by Vernon Doucette

While the exercise facilities in the building are modern and up-to-date, Dexter says, the building is not solely geared to physical fitness. Health and wellness and lifelong fitness — not to mention fun — figure prominently in the design. Considerable space is devoted to multipurpose rooms and a demonstration kitchen for social events as well as a growing number of PERD health and wellness classes.

Some features are playful. The recreational pool features a hot tub for 15, bubble seats, and a 100-foot-long curving “lazy river” with currents that propel inner tubers. The grand stair in the atrium, in addition to connecting floors, “is itself a feature and a fun event in the building,” Whitney says. “It’s a place where people can meet and hang out and chat and get a sense of the range of activities.”

While the rough plans for the building were coming together, Dexter traveled around the country in 2001 to study gymnasia, pools, multipurpose rooms, and pro shops at other universities. He surveyed floor plans, interviewed athletes and coaches, sampled materials, and evaluated how each building performed with sweaty clients. From this reconnaissance, the planners took into account the merits and pitfalls of other designs and came up with unique solutions to the BU’s community’s fitness and recreation needs.

Some features of the building are without precedent. The floor of the three-court gymnasium is made of a new synthetic material that has never before been installed in North America. Made by a German company, it is essentially high-tech linoleum composed of six layers of rubbery material applied to a thin steel plate that’s laid down on top of a thick cushioned pad. “You would not believe the resiliency and the bounce you get out of it,” Dexter says.

In addition to being a superb surface for basketball and indoor soccer, the new floor is durable enough to stand up to inline skating. “Generally, our firm hasn’t done multiuse gyms that allow for inline skating before,” Whitney says, “because of the damage these skates do to the floors.” With dasherboards for inline hockey and indoor soccer, the gym will also be available for gymnastics, badminton, and other activities.

Above all, Dexter says, the careful planning that went into the structure is an investment in quality of life at BU for years to come. “We have planned a truly spectacular facility and we look forward to generations of students and faculty enjoying the recreation activities that this building affords.”

1 April 2005
Boston University
Office of University Relations