Situated on a difficult urban site and straddling an existing roadway, the design for The West Hollywood Aquatic and Recreation Center requires a complex, contextual and yet aggressively sustainable solution.
As one of only two open space areas within this dense Southern California community, the park also accommodates a gymnasium, pool, day care facility, and basketball courts, leaving whatever open area left to be programmed almost continually throughout the year. The goal of the project is to create a new vision for the park which maximizes open space while providing bigger and better services and venues for the City’s 35,000 residents.
The 19,000-sq.-ft., proposed site for the recreation facility occupies an existing surface parking lot, one full level below the grade level of the park and across a city roadway which connects two major thoroughfares. The difficulty of the site involves public access, connection to the park and the newly constructed library and the addition of over 70,000 sq. ft. of new community service spaces. The solution involves a dense, multilevel building which spans two sides of the roadway, as well as the roof top of a previously constructed below grade parking structure.
The project is also saddled with the difficult task of resolving existing site circulation and access issues caused by previous developments.
The program begins at grade upon the surface parking lot which will accommodate a fully automatic parking garage, event staging area and public access television studio. Built upon this new parking garage will be a 17,000-sq.-ft. multi-purpose sports court at grade with the existing park, two roof top public pools, changing rooms, storage and equipment space, as well as staff areas. At the park level a bridge building will span over the existing roadway connecting the recreation center to a community building built upon the existing parking structure within the park. This building will accommodate community rooms, a day care center, staff offices and public social spaces. The structures will be linked to the existing park through the use of an active “grand stair” which will traverse from the park level to the roof top aquatic center incorporating an intermediate event deck and garden space. The stair is designed to become a center for social activity and a focal point for the park, as well as the community incorporating stadium seating, performance capabilities, a fitness stair and landscape elements.
The sustainable goals for the project are designed to create a significant environmental and educational impact in keeping with the City’s desire to eventually become the “greenest city in the nation”. The goal is for the project to not only attain a minimum LEED Gold Certification but potentially adhere to the strict sustainable requirements of the Living Building Challenge.
The aesthetic goals for the project involve the creation of a building that is “of the park” and not “in the park” through the integration of landscape and architecture as a singular statement. This direction will also help to engage rather than isolate the existing and somewhat figural buildings which currently surround the park.
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