Athletic Complex

year: 2019-2021
location: Princeton University, Princeton and West Windsor, NJ, the USA
authors: Sasaki

This is a unique campus scale Racquet Center for Princeton University for which I was combining roles of architectural designer, interior designer, Revit and BIM 360 leader and sustainability leader.

This LEED Gold and potentially Net Zero building of 190 000+ sq. ft. includes 9 indoor and 6 outdoor tennis courts, 12 regular and 2 exhibition squash courts, lockers, strength and conditioning, sports medicine. Client goal was not just build a new home for Princeton Athletics, but also create complex that can hold the IVY league events. On the very early stages of design it became clear, that the complex will serve not only athletes, but the whole community and Fitness center was added to the project.

Another layer of complexity was added during design process, when Princeton decided to use 3 courts space as a potential convening space for large events. Team explored different convening layouts and partially redesigned all systems to add necessary flexibility for such occasions.

The local regulation limited height of the building to 40' above the existing grade. That regulation present the challenge due to required tennis court clearances and high cost of every inch that building need to be sunk under ground. In order to minimize excavations without breaking the regulation so-called "red blanket" was modelled - a exact copy of existing grade with 40' offset from the ground. Through the design progress team was closely monitoring the building height and "red blanket" to make sure building does not intersect with it at any given point.

After SD phase and first cost estimates the tough decision was made: a part of the building has to be switched to pre-engineered metal building. This changed the design of the building dramatically, but the team was able to make a conversion a success.

You can find more about this project in the interior design and sustainability sections of this website.

As part of my BIM coordinator role I also worked on two other Princeton projects: Soccer Stadium and Softball Field