Klotsche Student Recreation Center Renovation and Addition University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Milwaukee, WI
Construction Cost: $29.5 million
Area / Square Feet: 135,000
Occupancy Date: December 2005

Open more than 100 hours per week, the Klotsche Student Recreation Center is the primary athletic and student recreation facility for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus community. The project integrates four programs recreation and instruction, athletics, sports medicine and human movement sciences (kinesiology).

The expansion includes a new fourcourt recreational gymnasium with a suspended walking/jogging track, a cardiovascular and strength-training center, a therapy pool, student lounge space, and multiple new labs and a shared library for sports medicine and human movement sciences. Athletic department enhancements include suite team locker rooms and an expanded weight-training center.

To unify the major project elements, a wedge space was designed to link the now predominantly athletic-focused existing facility with the recreationfocused addition. This space — an open, central circulation atrium — serves as an animated connection between existing and newly programmed areas. It also allows for a quieter student entrance for recreational use, while accommodating a more prominent special-event entry for athletics on the facility’s opposite end.

The addition presented an unusual opportunity to blend an urban campus aesthetic with the state-managed nature conservancy that surrounds the building site. The elevated running track has views to the conservancy and the surrounding campus. Careful attention was paid to the project footprint, accounting for a certain distance from trees and retaining a winding road through the site to connect neighborhood avenues.

Exterior materials were selected to match and enhance the existing campus fabric, while the muted interior color palette allows facility users and visitors to animate the space.