Curved Brick Facade Defines New Brooklyn Community Recreation Center
A new community recreation center has opened in Brooklyn, featuring a striking curved brick facade. The 74,000-square-foot facility offers a variety of recreation, wellness, and community programs, representing a significant addition to the neighborhood’s infrastructure.
A Welcoming Urban Presence
Located on a compact urban site adjacent to a public school, the community recreation center projects toward the street, creating a shaded public plaza. A central transparent entrance provides a clear and welcoming point of access. The gently curving brick facade, with its large arched windows, allows natural daylight to penetrate deep into the interior, opening up views between the activity spaces and the surrounding streetscape. This design choice enhances the connection with the broader urban environment of the cities.
Spaces for Recreation and Community
The lower three levels of the building are dedicated to physical recreation. These floors house a gymnasium, a walking track, dance and fitness studios, and a double-height, competition-grade swimming pool. Interior openings create visual connections between the different levels, allowing activities to be seen from the main lobby and reinforcing a sense of openness throughout the structures. The thoughtful design of the internal spaces is a key element of the project’s success.
Community-Oriented Amenities
The upper level is focused on community-oriented amenities, including afterschool programs, learning spaces, and a media lab. These rooms have direct access to a wraparound rooftop terrace and garden, which brings additional daylight into the spaces and allows for outdoor programming. The architectural design of this community recreation center is a noteworthy example of modern civic architecture. For more news on similar projects, you can visit our website.
Sustainable and Efficient Design
Environmental strategies were a central focus of the project. It features a high-performance envelope, all-electric heating and cooling systems, and an energy recovery system. A whole-building life cycle analysis informed the selection of building materials, such as the use of mass timber in the humid pool areas. The design also incorporates green roofs, expanded tree cover, and water conservation measures, demonstrating a strong commitment to sustainability. The construction process adhered to these principles from start to finish.
What do you believe is the most crucial feature for a community recreation center to offer?
A Quick Architectural Snapshot
The 74,000-square-foot building in Brooklyn features a curved brick facade with large arched windows. It includes a gymnasium, walking track, dance studios, a competition-grade swimming pool, and a rooftop terrace. Sustainable features include a high-performance envelope, all-electric systems, and mass timber in humid areas. Green roofs and water conservation measures are also integrated.
✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight
The proliferation of multi-program, vertically stacked community centers is a direct consequence of urban land-value pressure combined with public procurement models. These systems prioritize budgetary certainty and long-term operational durability. Consequently, material selection defaults to robust, low-maintenance systems like brick masonry, which has a predictable supply chain and lifecycle cost.
Simultaneously, municipal energy mandates and sustainability policies now act as a non-negotiable decision framework. Features such as all-electric systems, energy recovery, and integrated stormwater management are no longer design choices but baseline requirements for project approval.
The architectural outcome a dense, multi-story facility with a resilient facade is the logical expression of these forces. It is a physical asset optimized for maximizing programmatic output on a constrained footprint while mitigating fiscal risk and satisfying regulatory obligations.
