The East Suffolk Recreation Center is a reuse of a long-abandoned historic school building. Designers provided a restoration of the exterior and inserted a modern interior that includes a new gymnasium. The center-corridor circulation system boasts rooms set off on each side, much as they were originally. The materials and colors are light and varied to create an environment that contrasts with the brick exterior.
The new gym’s exterior recalls the color and materials of the existing school but is clearly from a different era, so as not to confuse the historic and non-historic structural elements. The gym is a simple volume that utilizes an angle joist system to evoke the old wrought-iron trusses that would have been employed when the original building was erected.
The project is notable for the careful restoration process and the melding of new and old.
Life F/X at Silo Point
