Title: Eastway Regional Recreation Center
Location of Proejct: Charlotte, NC
Project Completion Date: 10/2020
Firm Name: Neighboring Concepts

Short Description: The Eastway Regional Recreation Center is built to connect and inspire the diverse community it serves across age, race, gender and cultural backgrounds. Vibrant colors and wood tones reflect a region deeply rooted in agriculture and textiles. The building form weaves together the community and recreation building program through open, interconnected spaces, angled and textured forms, and a vibrant color palette. The entry lobby is scaled to communicate invitation and organizes the program elements, with community spaces (demonstration kitchen, nature center, senior center and technology lab) on one side, and active spaces (fitness area, gymnasium and aquatics) on the other.

Architect's Statement: The Eastway Regional Recreation Center is the first regional recreation center of its kind to serve the residents of Charlotte, North Carolina. The facility provides health, wellness, and educational opportunities that make it stand out in the region while serving a diverse, underserved, and underrepresented community. Through a series of community engagement meetings with local residents, the design team prioritized senses of empowerment, hope, energy and excitement. This was then showcased in the design alongside a clear connection to the history and cultural relevance of the Charlotte region, rooted in textile manufacturing and agriculture.

The exterior of the building is angular and dynamic with a strong connection to the history and community of this Charlotte area. The brick is layered and textured to reinforce the concept of weaving in a way that represents stitching a broken community back together. The entrance is compiled of open spaces and design aspects that reinforce connection by the shared view of many social, community and recreation spaces which define the program. One of the showpieces of the building’s interior is a large graphic mural through ‘Area Environments’, who works with incarcerated individuals who are creating artwork, giving them a portfolio and income stream upon rehabilitation.

Vibrant colors and wood tones reflect a culturally diverse region representative of the surrounding population while paying homage to agrarian roots. The undulating lobby ceiling picks up on the rolling landscapes that evoke the natural terrain of local farmland while a wood veil beyond the reception desk is accented with colors that reflect historical textile creations. This entry volume stretches from one side of the building to the other, organizing the main program elements with communal and social spaces like a demonstration kitchen, nature center, senior center and technology and sound studio on one side while the other side includes active spaces like the fitness zone, gymnasium, multi-athletic court, and aquatic spaces.

The building is specifically designed for the area’s disadvantaged populations. The program of the building was developed with a year of public engagement - however reaching an underserved, disadvantaged, and neglected population proved to be challenging. The community was distrusting of the local government, to combat this we organized community events to prompt unity and collaboration.

Partnering with the local school system, Spanish speaking radio stations, ethnic food stores, and churches to help reach the underserved; we targeted minority demographics in the area so they felt involved and connected with each other while learning about the project. We were able to create gatherings that brought the community together and ask them what they needed from a facility like this, how it can specifically serve them, and how it can help them live healthier lives.

The Owner then chose to build onto that feedback with programming efforts, the demonstration kitchen and food and nutrition classes, gardening, a free senior lunch program, and demographic targeted health and wellness classes. Additionally, facilities that targeted youth were desired, giving shape to the indoor 'sport court' which provides indoor soccer, futsol, and lacrosse activities.

This project took a multi-faceted approach to environmental and social sustainability. This began with the initial 79 acre site selection. The final building location was selected on top of an existing parking lot seeking to preserve as much of the wooded green-space as possible and minimize any new impervious service the project would require. The building is sited to optimize solar orientation, with larger windows north and south, and smaller, vertical windows
with vertical fins on the east and west elevations.

Tenants from LEED and Green Globes, and a partnership with the utility provider’s Duke Energy Smart Saver program drove sustainable approaches. Multiple sizes and configurations of the chilled water and boiler heating systems were paired with various building envelope insulation and glazing configurations to determine the appropriate balance of first cost and long-term savings of energy use. Preference was given to interior material selections that featured recycled content, locally sourced materials and materials with low embodied energy. The primary structural steel frame includes upwards of 90% recycled steel. The building’s steel, brick, concrete and concrete block were all manufactured within 50 miles of the project site, reducing transportation costs and CO2 emissions.

Upon completion of all bid cycles, the $35 million dollar project was $2 million under budget. Near the end of construction, the Owner was able to add an illuminated artificial turf sports field to the project with the savings found through the collaboration between the design team and construction manager.

Seeking to celebrate and empower the local community, our charge was to ensure that the residents engaged in the project from day one, felt welcome and at home in the building once complete, and that we provided a facility which celebrated their diverse cultures.