Recreation Transformation
The new student recreation complex at the University of Missouri ("Mizzou"), Columbia, is like none before. An amalgam of the 1905 
Rothwell Gymnasium, the 1929 Brewer Fieldhouse and a 1987 connector building, the structure has now been enlarged by 115,000-square-feet, modernized and transformed in a $50 million project.
You might be hard pressed to believe that this is a student recreation center. If you forgot you were at Mizzou, which was founded in 1839, you might think you were in an exclusive members-only club, or even a swank resort in Las Vegas.
Let’s start with the new aquatic center – in addition to its 50-meter competitive pool, complete with a 10-meter diving well, it contains themed leisure areas known as Tiger Grotto and Truman’s Pond. These spaces include a hearth fireplace, bubble pool, low-rise waterfall, plasma screens, steam room, sauna, deck overhangs and a lazy indoor river.
|
PROJECT DATA Architect: Hastings & Chivetta Architects Inc. |
The outdoor pool is oval shaped with a depth of three-and-a-half feet. Handicapped accessibility features are found throughout. There are ramps leading into the pool areas, and two handicapped accessible changing rooms.
The grotto invokes the Tiger spirit and tradition of Mizzou. With its palm trees and jungle-like qualities, it’s intended to take students away from their hectic routines and into a relaxed state of mind.
From the outset, Diane Dahlmann, director of Mizzou recreation services and facilities, wanted to create spaces that would engage students without intimidating them. "We created an aquatic space with water features for students who don’t swim but want to be in the water, by the water," she says.
When Dahlmann began the process of determining what kind of a student recreation center 18 to 25 year olds would want, she took her cues from some unlikely places, "things that would be considered as extreme as watching MTV Cribs," notes Dahlmann.
 |
| In the Jungle Gym, one of many themed areas in the student recreation complex, the floor is tiered. Students can look out the windows down onto the 50-meter competition pool, or at one of the 24 plasma screens. |
"We looked at fantasy vacations, Disney, Las Vegas, Ian Schrager hotels and The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. We went to many, many different environments, and then we used our student focus groups and said, ‘What is it that you would like to see?’"
Concierge Service
Students had described the rec center’s former locker areas as dark and scary, and they were one of the five main items they wanted addressed in the new facility. Administrators created more options for students and community members – the new facility offers both general-purpose locker areas and the Rothwell Club.
At the Rothwell Club, lockers are maple-finished and rattan furniture creates spaces for viewing ZouTv on yet another plasma screen (in June, 56 plasma screens were operational, and Dahlmann wants more). For an additional $14 per month, students are provided with mouthwash, lotion, shampoo and shower gel.
And more is to come. Bob Osman, Mizzourec’s associate director of facilities, says concierge service is where college recreation centers are heading. He says the center will eventually provide toothbrushes, shaving cream and laundry services. "We are going to get there. It is something we don’t do right this second, but we will get there." (The new student recreation complex is funded by a $75-per-semester increase in student fees, which students supported.)
 |
| The Rothwell Club locker room is offered to students for an additional $14 per month, where amenities include mouthwash, lotion, shampoo and shower gel. |
The other things students wanted in their new recreation space included air-conditioning throughout, more space for a fitness center (there is now 20,000 square feet of fitness space, about four times the previous amount), more aquatic options (there are now four pools) and group exercise space.
It’s the small details that make the complex so inviting. For example, closet space is ubiquitous. As students gear up for yoga, Pilates or cardio, they can store their shoes in cubbies and their towels on hooks.
There is also Tiger’s Lair, a cycling room that looks like a nightclub with its black lights, intentional graffiti and steel-plated door. Tiger Training, a personal training service, is available to students wanting to jump-start their workouts.
Customization
The Jungle Gym is a tiered area with 100 cardio machines, including stair-steppers with personal DVD screens. There are also 24 plasma screens in the room. There is close to $1 million worth of cardio equipment and weight machines in the Jungle Gym alone.
The equipment is state-of-the-art. "They didn’t skimp and say, ‘It’s a great facility, now we can’t afford the equipment,’" says Chris Chivetta, president at Hastings & Chivetta, a St. Louis-based architectural firm.
 |
| The façade of Rothwell Gymnasium, constructed of locally-quarried limestone in 1905, was preserved, but inside it was gutted to house the indoor leisure aquatic pools. |
"The newest trend," says Chivetta, "is to have the big screens that everyone refers to, but then you have the individual players and individual flat screens on each piece of equipment, so students can view what they want."
The 294,000-square-foot Jungle Gym is broken down into smaller themed areas that are intended to engage students.
As Chivetta notes, "Today’s student likes high-end retail, high-end interiors, and we wanted to bring those concepts inside the building, so when we started talking about theming – doing things like the Pump Room and the Jungle Gym – we did it so that as students approached those areas they could see them from far away and have a visual connection to them. It’s very similar to a mall concept."
There are more amenities to come. Once the facility is 100-percent complete in the fall, facials, pedicures, manicures and massage services will be available.
"I’d be hard-pressed to believe that a student would think it would be more interesting to be in a hot, sweaty, stinky bar than to be hanging out in the hot tub watching MTV or the Tigers play on one of the big display boards while waitstaff from Red Hall Beverage Company [operated by campus dining services] runs appetizers and alcohol-free drinks poolside," says Dahlmann. The Red Hall Beverage Company is a drinks-only bar where students can charge their purchases to their accounts, so they don’t need to tote cash to the pool.
 |
| Truman’s Pond, the outdoor leisure pool, is set down so it is protected from the wind. Mark Keane, project designer and architect at Hastings & Chivetta, says the university kept some of the older Rothwell Gymnasium buttresses, circa 1905, to create a visual barrier between the campus and the pool area. |
Branding and signage is huge throughout the facility. The school’s black-and-gold tiger shows up on the diving well and the face of its pool. Throughout the center’s offices, glass doorways conjure up the Tiger image, and the capital "M" is emblazoned at the base of staircases and in entryways in black metal.
The tiger theme travels throughout the smaller "neighborhoods" of the facility, serving as a reminder of Mizzou’s past and present.
For example, designers cleverly recycled former raquetball courts to create "Downtown Brewer," a replica of an old-fashioned main street. "These were poured-in-place racquetball courts and we could not move them with 10 tons of dynamite," says Chivetta. "So we worked inside those boxes and put new facades on them, just like you’d do at a mall." Historic images abound in Downtown Brewer: At entrances to the general-purpose locker rooms and the Rothwell Club, and on the balcony above, lined with entrances to the studios, there are built-in benches decorated with copies of original photographs of coaches of yesteryear. More images are seen along the blinds that line the south-facing windows in the 1,000-seat natatorium.
Rothwell’s Centennial
 |
| Sited along the historic streetscape of Downtown Brewer are the entryways to the general-purpose locker rooms and Rothwell Club. |
"Intercollegiate athletics used to be based in our facility, so that’s what so great about it, we have all that history," says Osman. But blending the old with the new was no easy task because there were numerous elevations throughout the building and varying construction materials had been used over the last one hundred years.
Architects at Hastings & Chivetta opted to keep the limestone façade on the new addition, which is reminiscent of the Rothwell Gymnasium, circa 1905, one of the original white campus buildings. The Brewer Fieldhouse, circa 1929, was the last building made with stone from the Quittinkson Limestone Quarry, which is no longer operational.
Limestone, a precursor to marble, is found throughout Missouri (stone production is reported in 88 of the state’s 114 counties). When architects wanted to blend the old with the new, they made sure the limestone matched up. Don Keane, senior vice president and project manager at Hastings & Chivetta, explains that the architectural team worked with a St.-Louis-based firm that was able to provide a stone that matched the existing facade in both color, texture and size.
"They put up several panels next to the existing building before we finalized the stone to be used on the new addition," says Keane. "And you can’t tell the new from the old, it turned out so well."
This student recreation complex with its themed environments may be a forerunner of student life to follow – college recreation facilities that offer students the option to remain on-campus, without locking them into a step aerobics class or swimming laps to relax. Here they can surf the internet (it’s a 100 percent wireless facility), get a suntan poolside or order drinks at the Red Hall Beverage Company, or do all three.
|
PROJECT DATA Construction Materials Acoustic Products Carpet and Flooring Washroom Equipment/ Supplies |