Fitness and Aquatics Center

Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island, under construction, completion 2012

The Fitness and Aquatics Center will provide much-needed athletic facilities and a new quadrangle at the gateway to Brown's evolving Erickson Athletic Complex. The new building will bring the architectural character of the campus's historic brick buildings to the northeastern edge of the campus while also acknowledging Providence's tradition of robustly classical industrial buildings.

The building is composed of three distinctly articulated parts. The head house, facing Hope Street, scaled to relate to the surrounding residential neighborhood, will house the exercise rooms, locker rooms, and the Nelson Fitness Center, a 10,000-square-foot multipurpose fitness loft. The David J. Zucconi '55 Varsity Strength and Conditioning Center will face the playing fields to the east. Bracketed between these two wings is the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center, with a 56-meter swimming pool, equipped for three-meter diving, set one level below grade to reduce the mass of the building. The landscaped Ittleson Quadrangle will replace the parking lot between the new building and the banal but functional 1970s Meehan Ice Rink and Pizzitola Gymnasium; a future new parking garage will be sensitively sited to the rear of the athletic complex.