UCF Athletic Complex

While walking down east plaza drive toward victory lane I noticed that it becomes difficult to recognize a clear path to the entry of the Baseball stadium. I could see clearly that the stadium sat behind this structure, but the direction was unclear as to turn left or right. 

In plan view it is quite easy to see that the entry is on the left, but my intent for this design was to strengthen the procession to the entry of the Baseball stadium. There was an intent to create a material style for the entire Athletic complex that could be recognized and understood as an Athletic facility.

Often I find it hard to justify the investment into athletic facilities, while the same investment is not put into the scholarly facilities. I often think of it only affecting the players involved — how the percentage of individuals involved in the program will not be accepted into the professional field, where the investment will be paid off. A recently published book The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United Sates – Cathedrals of Sport, shed an inspiring parallel relationship to sport and community. Sport is replacing the cathedrals and civic buildings as the meeting place for man. I will end with an excerpt from that book:

Sport seduces the teeming ‘global village’; it is the new opiate of the masses; it is one of the great modern experiences; its attraction astonishes only the recluse; its appeal spans the globe. Without exaggeration, sport is a mirror in which nations, communities, men and women now see themselves. That reflection is sometimes bright, sometimes dark, sometimes distorted, sometimes magnified. This metaphorical mirror is a source of mass exhilaration and depression, security and insecurity, pride and humiliation, bonding and alienation. Sport, for many, has replaced religion as a source of emotional catharsis and spiritual passion, and for many, since it is among the earliest of memorable childhood experiences, it infiltrates memory, shapes enthusiasms, serves fantasies. To co-opt Gay again: it blends memory and desire.
The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States
Mark Dyreson and Robert Thumpbour