NIRSA facility feature: Colby College Harold Alfond Athletics & Recreation Center

NIRSA and its members are leaders in collegiate recreation, helping to make communities healthier by promoting participation in campus recreation programming. The Colby College Harold Alfond Athletics & Recreation Center, a 2022 NIRSA Outstanding Facility Award recipient, provides opportunities for all members of the campus community to participate in recreation activities that encourage lifelong healthy habits by utilizing state-of-the-art facilities in a beautiful, sustainably-designed building.

The Harold Alfond Athletics & Recreation Center has had a significant impact on the wellbeing of the Colby College community, offering intramural and club sports, studio classes, walk-in fitness opportunities, and outdoor recreation. The openness, proximity to campus, and welcoming nature of the facility have provided everyone on campus with access to recreational opportunities, allowing them to focus on overall wellbeing as well as academics.

About the Harold Alfond Athletics & Recreation Center

“Extended to all students campus-wide,” the college says, “Colby Recreation strives to eradicate intimidation from active environments, foster a judgment-free community, entice newcomers, and amplify the participation of all people in recreational activities.”

The three-story, 350,000 square-foot Harold Alfond Athletics & Recreation Center opened in 2020 to support this mission and was made possible with the help of the Harold Alfond Foundation, which invests in initiatives supporting education, healthcare, and youth and community development in the state of Maine.

The Harold Alfond Athletics & Recreation Center (HAARC) was designed with aesthetics and sustainability in mind. The indoor venues are organized around a central outdoor courtyard and floor-to-ceiling windows, which allow for ample amounts of daylight while providing expansive views of the campus and surrounding landscape. The clean, contemporary style of the building was designed to minimize its footprint, with a focus on light and openness, and preserve the surrounding open space as much as possible.

The facility brings together all of Colby College’s indoor competition venues, as well as training, recreation, and support areas into a single space. Highlights of the center include:

• An ice arena with year-round, regulation ice
• Three regulation basketball/volleyball courts
• A family fitness center containing weight training areas, cardio equipment, and training/rehab areas
• Nine championship regulation squash courts
• An indoor track and field house
• A 42-foot climbing wall containing areas of varying difficulty
• The first Olympic-sized swimming pool in the state of Maine

“Thank you to NIRSA for considering Colby College for this Award and series.  Thank you to Sasaki Architects for building a tremendous facility.  We will accept this award with honor and prestige and continue to utilize this space to create opportunities for students and our community,” says Nashid Bracy, Director of Recreation at Colby College.

Sustainability

One of NIRSA’s strategic values is sustainable communities, recognizing that campus recreation has a responsibility to be involved in environmentally friendly practices such as the use of renewable energy sources, waste reduction, and the inclusion of green space in facility design. The Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center sets a high standard for eco-friendly construction, utilizing multiple green practices in the facility’s design and considering sustainability in all aspects of building operations.

The building’s central courtyard—a highlight of its design—not only provides stunning views, but a source of daylight that radiates throughout all three stories of the facility. The building’s layout was cut into a slope and built up with multiple levels, reducing material costs for insulation and exterior walls. The entire building is designed to maximize the use of renewable resources, such as using the energy generated from making ice for the rink to heat the pool. Outside the center, runoff water is diverted into the surrounding landscaping, which contains native plantings rather than high-maintenance turf grass.

As a result of these efforts, in Spring 2022 the facility was awarded Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum Certification, which is LEED’s highest available rating. It also received SITES Gold Certification, which demonstrates the center’s commitment to sustainability through its landscaping.

About the lead architect

The Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center was designed by Sasaki in collaboration with Hopkins Architects.

Sasaki is an international firm consisting of more than 300 team members from 30 different countries.  Their architects have worked on diverse projects worldwide, from the Moscow International Financial Centre to the United States Embassy Campus in Chad to Xuhui Runway Park, designed on the site of a former airport runway in Shanghai, China. Sasaki architects have also designed numerous recreation and wellness centers for colleges and universities across the US.

Sustainability in design is a key feature of Sasaki’s efforts, building on a belief that each project represents an opportunity to address climate change. Sasaki collaborates with clients to achieve the goals of site-specific Climate Action Plans, which may include components related to environmental education, the reduction of carbon emissions, or the use of natural resources. In fact, Sasaki recently developed the Carbon Conscience app, a free tool used early in a building’s design process which helps to assess carbon emissions, storage, and sequestration. App users can compare various design features to gain valuable information about the impact of their choices.

Hopkins Architects, based out of London and Dubai, also contributed to the design of the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center. Hopkins works with diverse clients worldwide to create a unique solution to each need. Hopkins’ projects include the Buhais Geology Park Interpretive Centre in the United Arab Emirates, Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, the Tokyo Midtown Hibiya Tower, and Chepauk Stadium in India. Like Sasaki, Hopkins Architects is committed to sustainable design, focusing on minimizing environmental impact and reducing energy use.

“Designing the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center provided a rare opportunity to realize a single comprehensive facility for an entire campus athletics and recreation department. It allowed us to optimize resources for the student athlete and provide parity across all programs, while welcoming the non-athlete to participate,” says Chris Sgarzi, AIA, LEED AP and Principal-in-Charge for Sasaki.

“Clear circulation, enhanced sightlines within venues, and transparency across the facility heighten the spectator experience and impress visitors and recruits,” Chris adds.

The facility is exceptionally efficient; “the central courtyard introduces nature as an organizing element, establishing clarity and bringing daylight into all levels of the building–even when stepping outside of a locker room on the lowest floor,” says Chris.

“Along with being the first Platinum LEED and Gold Sites project in the State of Maine, recognition from NIRSA further validates this facility as an innovative, responsible, and welcoming asset that promotes health and wellness for the entire campus community,” Chris shares.

About NIRSA’s Outstanding Facilities Awards

The annual NIRSA Outstanding Facilities Awards recognize the innovative designs of new, renovated, or expanded collegiate recreational facilities of NIRSA member institutions. Winning facilities are considered a standard by which other campus recreation facilities should be measured, and from which others can benefit.

Applications for the 2023 NIRSA Outstanding Facilities Awards are open through November 16, 2022. Eligibility guidelines, selection criteria, and entry fee details can be found on the NIRSA website.