Harvard University, Harvard Business School Shad Hall, Athletic & Fitness Center
At a prominent location of the campus, across the Charles River and facing Harvard Stadium, the Athletic Fitness Center provides a gymnasium and banked jogging track, 5 squash and 4 racquet courts, aerobic classrooms and a fitness conditioning room for the business school community.
A linear sky-lit atrium connects all activity levels and brings visual clarity and orientation to the organization of the building. There is easy access from the locker room near the entrance lobby to the gym and exercise rooms above and the courts below. A pub/gallery is centrally located and overlooks the semi-circular forecourt.
At the exterior, the subtle splay of the building enclosure relates to the underlying radial geometry of the river sites. The differing scale and configuration of the Business School buildings to the north and the grand scale of the stadium are reiterated in the winged and inflected entry façade of the Fitness Center and the larger order of the arcaded gymnasium volume on Harvard Street.
The materials, palette and configuration of the building aims at compatibility rather than a replication of the architectural language of the campus.