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Blue Hill Avenue Youth Development Center
Boston, MA

Completed

1995

Awards

Harleston Parker Medal, City of Boston and the Boston Society of Architects, 1996
Boston Society of Architects Honor Award, 1995 American Institute of Architects New England, 1996

To serve a densely populated and multiracial urban neighborhood, this new recreation, social, and learning center for young people re-imagines an abandoned ice hockey rink.

The original rink was an open-air structure covered by long-span bowstring trusses, with a small enclosed brick head house for locker rooms. By demolishing only the head house and building a new gymnasium on its foundations, two-thirds of the open-air structure was retained, enclosed, and reoccupied with game rooms, a teen lounge, a library, an art room, and a teaching kitchen. The broad promenade between activity spaces makes use of the very wide building footprint and reveals the shed’s original trusses and a new skylight.

The gymnasium is a simple rectangular volume, its ground-face concrete block presenting the principal façade of the building to the community. A light roof cap of steel trusses and clerestory windows brings in natural light by day and emits a warm, inviting glow at night. Signaling the main public entrance from the street, a colorful steel canopy wraps around a slender steel column topped with a beacon of light. The canopy links the three principal volumes- entry zone, gymnasium, and clubhouse.

Executed with extreme resourcefulness, and an economy of means on a limited budget, the recreation, social and education community center has an active and positive neighborhood presence. It is designed as a proud new community landmark that offers a safe, durable and lively environment for its young people.


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