The University of Alabama at Birmingham Campus Recreation Center is a multipurpose facility designed to house activities—both educational and physical—for the promotion of health and fitness.

This dynamic brick-and-glass building houses Administrative Offices, with conferencing and seminar spaces for wellness classes. In addition there are four basketball courts, an indoor soccer field and five racquetball courts. The building also features a full-size, indoor recreational swimming pool, a weightlifting and cardiovascular area, a theatre and five large multi-purpose fitness classrooms.

The interior spaces are all tied together with an oval-shaped, one-eighth mile track which slices through the lobby, basketball and soccer courts—and even exits the building through a glass tunnel suspended three floors above the ground, then re-enters with dramatic views to the fifty-foot-high climbing wall. A storage area houses equipment that students can check-out for outdoor field trips and canoeing.

The building is designed to become transparent after dark—creating a striking view from the busy adjacent streets below of the large, open-cardio areas and the track hovering above with its suspended ribbon ceiling defining its ever-curving plan.

As a magnet for communal student activities, this building will serve the dual purpose of educating and strengthening campus life.

Click here to visit the Rec Center Web Cam.


CLIENT
University of Alabama at Birmingham Board of Trustees

FACILITY TYPE
Multi-Level Recreation Center

CONSTRUCTED VALUE
$21.3 million

ARCHITECTS
Williams Blackstock Architects, Inc.