Having created angular facade and curtainwall treatments on the short ends of Penner Field House (one facing a neighborhood to the south and the other an athletics plaza to the north), designers of the facility — opened at Brown University in January — would likely be forgiven for leaving the facility’s west elevation well enough alone. Afterall, its massive expanse faced an unlit field hockey pitch. Thankfully, they didn’t. Instead, Sasaki architects worked with Kingspan Insulated Panels Inc. to accessorize the west facade with 2-foot-wide fins, each measuring 4 inches deep, and vertically sized and arranged to spell BROWN in 20.5-foot-tall block letters — with a big assist from the sun. “We were looking to put some kind of branding on that side, and we thought that playing with shadows would recreate it,” says project architect Lucila Rosso. “It’s interesting, because Brown, at the beginning, was not buying it. They didn’t think it was going to be that effective, but it turned out really well, and people really love it. They have embraced it.” (The letters’ jagged appearance even complements the building’s northeast corner profile.) Trim for interchangeable vinyl fabric banners to the left and right of the lettering represent accessories with the potential to lend even more visual interest to an end of the Providence, R.I., campus that needed it, according to Russo, who adds the field house fills practical needs first and foremost: “They didn’t have an indoor practice facility, and this winter — which was so cold and with so much snow here in the northeast — it was a game changer for them.”
