New program desires and capacity needs drove a creative response to an existing convoluted, three-building complex. By “adding on from the middle,” Purdue’s France A. Cordova Recreational Sports Center was transformed into a vibrant student destination while leveraging its prime location. A full complement of new and invigorated fitness, gym, aquatic, climbing, multiuse, social, wellness and special event spaces was programmed by turning the existing facility inside-out.
Convoluted circulation between windowless spaces gave no sense of wayfinding and no hint of activity in the existing facility. A new central atrium unites campus, parking and aquatics entries with a common controlled entry and visual connection of the myriad recreation choices available.
Neighborhoods of activity break down the scale of this huge facility and provide a wide range of fitness activities with varying degrees of openness and widely differing character to support a diversity of user needs and experiences. They reveal themselves to both central atrium and exterior as transparent layers of spaces, bringing natural light deep into the heart of the five-level facility. A new walking/jogging track provides a fitness stroll through the neighborhoods.
New and old blend seamlessly as a careful composition of a single building. The new heart of the center is expressed as light-filled volumes of glass and stone, with visual transparency and connections of activity to campus.
Harold Alfond Forum - University of New England
