Oak Park Field Center
Team: Can Vu Bui, Lane Rick, Vincent Calabro, Sol Condo
This proposal believes that it’s important to work with existing buildings and communities, to conserve and adapt rather than to erase; this approach serves a cultural, sustainable and an environmental need.
Culturally, we preserve those elements that are unique to their place in Oak Park’s history, as well as its present-day community. This includes not just John Van Bergen’s 1919 Prairie Style building, but the pastoral landscape of the park, the integration with the Horace Mann Elementary School and contextual place within the surrounding neighborhood.
Environmentally, we remove no more than what is necessary. The resources and energy embodied in the existing park are themselves an asset. The building’s existing walls and foundations, as well as the old growth trees in its immediate context are preserved as much as possible.
The new recreation center is conceived as an extension of the existing building, rather than a wholly new structure. The placement of the new wing is positioned to avoid tree removal, to accommodate existing paths through the park, and to create a recreation center that is both secure and welcoming to park visitors.
The material and formal design of the new building responds to the Prairie Style houses in the surrounding blocks. Pitched roofs echo surrounding houses, and maintain the residential scale of the project as a whole. Wood cladding and the bricks of the existing structure give a warm texture to the building within its landscape.