Quinnipiac University Recreation and Wellness Center Hamden, Conn.

Project Description:

The Recreation and Wellness Center at Quinnipiac University is a central campus hub for students to become the best version of themselves. Designed through collaboration, the center aims to promote holistic health and wellbeing by combining clinical health, mental health, nutritional health and recreational fitness in one cohesive facility. Holding these functions together is a Social Education Hub that connects the program elements and provides opportunities for formal and informal interaction and education.

Externally, the new building connects to the existing Athletics and Recreation Center, which offers a prominent location on the edge of the main campus quad and creates a contemplative courtyard between the new and existing buildings. Internally, existing campus resources such as the elevated track and fieldhouse connect to the new facility to increase program offerings that are shared between athletics and recreation. The Social Education Hub is a versatile programming element that ranges from gathering spaces to a demonstration kitchen and breakout spaces that act as a connecting space to the recreation, counseling and health services suites, providing a buffer from the activity of the recreation program.

To promote an environment for holistic health with the LEED Gold-certified facility, the design team focused on biophilia through natural materials. Wood finishes, local stone and green living walls are used extensively. An exposed heavy timber-frame structure is complemented with glass curtainwall and roof apertures that connect inside and outside, providing views to the campus, the sky and the natural landscape of the adjacent Sleeping Giant State Park.