Robert Crown Community Center and Library
Evanston, Illinois
In Collaboration with Woodhouse Tinucci Architects
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Twin-Pad Arena, Gymnasium, Track, Fitness, Multipurpose Rooms, Branch Library, Preschool, Soccer Fields, Football Field, Tennis Courts, Playground
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Structural: Stearn-Joglekar
Mechanical / Electrical: CCJM / Smith + Andersen
Civil: TERRA Engineering
Landscape: Conservation Design Forum
Sports Field: JBC Landscape Architects -
2022 American Institute of Architects (AIA) Chicago: Design Excellence Award (Citation of Merit)
2021 Chicago Building Congress: Merit Award
2021 American Public Works Association (APWA): Suburban Branch Award
After a decade of analysis and program review, the City of Evanston, Illinois, 12-miles north of Chicago, elected to replace its fading 1975 ice rink and community centre. Our project delivered on the City’s vision for a complex that marries competitive programming with recreation and wellness, providing a new facility and completely transforming the surrounding Robert Crown Park, reorganizing, expanding, and integrating outdoor and indoor programming. A key quality of the building is that it feels and performs like a much bigger one, with spaces that have been designed to overlap: for instance, the outdoor courtyard-reading garden is accessible from the preschool, lobby, and public library, allowing their programs to spill to the outside. The project demonstrates how, through careful design, a large-scale facility with multivalent amenities can be sensitively introduced into a residential neighbourhood and become a vibrant focal point for a diverse community.
The old facility was located in the middle of the existing 15-acre Crown Park; situating the new building at the park’s west end thus allowed uninterrupted services during construction. The siting moreover prioritizes park space and shields the new facility’s outdoor spaces from a busy thoroughfare while maintaining the site’s perimeter of mature trees.
Park space was also maximized by giving the building compact massing and a reduced floorplate, with major program areas located on a second floor.
The 2-level ‘social condenser’ lobbies at the centre of the building are polyvalent — areas for viewing primary activities that can also be overlapped and occupied by the adjacent programs.
With a colour palette dominated by serene white with accents of black, green, and wood, the interior materials are durable but welcoming. Translucent glazing is used throughout the facility, including clerestories in the arenas, so that non-glare natural light enlivens all spaces and further unifies the planning.
