Family Wellness

Sioux Falls, SD
Construction Cost: $8.3 million
Area / Square Feet: 73,280
Occupancy Date: August 2006

Family Wellness, the first new YMCA facility in Sioux Falls, S.D., in 85 years, is a joint venture between the YMCA and Sanford Hospital and Health Systems. Instead of competing for members on the rapidly growing west edge of the city, the two institutions combined resources to construct a larger facility.

The conditioning center is designed as the focal point, a central open space around which nearly all program spaces are arrayed. Bright, playful colors and patterns emerge throughout the interior to reflect activity and exuberance, and large expanses of glass provide natural light and views throughout the interior.

A ring of clerestory windows wraps the central conditioning center, and a large skylight accents the welcome desk while several smaller skylights bring natural light into the locker rooms. The exterior design emphasizes primary program elements in the building?s massing. The pool, conditioning center, gymnasium and administrative/youth areas are separate, well-defined elements. Meanwhile, the use of architectural precast concrete panels and exposed structural elements helped reduce construction costs.