Audley Recreation Centre and Library
Ajax, Ontario
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Phase 1: Aquatic Centre, Gymnasium, Fitness, Dance Studio, Multipurpose Rooms, Youth Room, Teaching Kitchen, Child Care, Outdoor Sports Courts, Sports Fields, Skatepark, Playground, Multi-Use Trails.
Phase 2: Branch Library, Multi-Use Studios, Community Hall (500-Person Capacity), Splash Pad, Off-Leash Dog Park.
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Structural: Blackwell
Mechanical / Electrical: Smith + Andersen
Civil: EMC
Landscape: PMA (Phase 1) / Landscape Planning (Phase 2) / MJMA (Phase 3) -
2014 Athletic Business: Facilities of Merit Design Award
The Audley Recreation Centre plays a pivotal role in the Town’s efforts to build neighbourhoods and support cohesive and healthy communities. The scope of work included a new park and the LEED Gold-certified facility, which together added 55-acres to an existing 45-acre sports field. The recreation centre is an anchor for its suburban neighbourhood, offering a full array of opportunities for personal and community development to residents of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
The building was designed with maximized connections to the exterior and surrounding park and to accommodate expansion: its two completed construction phases (with a third planned for arenas) include an aquatic centre, gymnasium, branch public library, fitness centre, and multipurpose spaces.
The project was master-planned as a model for integrating sustainable and accessible public facilities within the Ajax suburban residential and roads network. An access street and courtyard parking area are internalized within the site in order to present a park facility to the neighbourhood that is easily accessed by walking paths.
The pavilion-like building addresses the exterior on all sides with highly transparent entrances, linked indoor-to-outdoor spaces, and views into the surrounding park and neighbourhood.
Two ‘flow through’ lobbies, established respectively during Phases 1 and 2, pass through the building to connect its major amenities with those in the park.
The generously proportioned and coherent central circulatory system creates intuitive wayfinding throughout the complex while also making the building ‘future ready’: it accommodated the Phase 2 expansion, and will do the same for Phase 3.
The central library space is unrestricted by columns, maximizing both natural light penetration and sightlines into the landscape and neighbourhood beyond.
