The Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center, is proof that design excellence can be achieved on a budget.
The $7 million community wellness center in Mount Vernon was recently honored for innovation, precision, community impact and resourcefulness with design awards from both the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Central States Region and Athletic Business magazine.
Originally conceived of by the community more than 20 years ago and funded by local option sales tax and private donations, the building, referred to locally as the LBC, serves both as a formal and informal gathering space for community groups and residents as well as a multi-purpose wellness facility.
“The entire community of Mount Vernon is extremely proud of our newest civic addition, the Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center,” said Tom Wieseler, a city council member whose involvement with the project dates back to the beginning. “The LBC is beautiful aesthetically and functionally. A large number of our citizens can be engaged in a variety of activities in different areas of the building and enjoy themselves immensely. We are still finding new uses for the building.” Or, as one awards juror wrote, it is “a simple yet elegant community wellness center that will be a public asset for many years to come.”
The center includes two courts and a multipurpose space that can be used for practices concurrently or combined into one space for tournaments, a track, fitness and weight areas, a group fitness room, and a community room.
Designed for future flexibility, the building takes advantage of the site’s topography to create an entry plaza and sunken courtyard on the east, with space for a pool expansion on the west. The center’s form is created by two solid bars – one clad in precast concrete and the other brick – slightly offset from each other.
Located at a busy intersection and adjacent to the local high school, glass is used at strategic locations in the solid form to allow views out, reveal activity within, and create a welcoming presence.
It was the building’s simple form and use of exterior materials, including the ground-level curtainwall, which allows passersby a peek at interior activity, that caught the attention of several Athletic Business Journal judges.
“This highly abstracted and deceptively simple massing has lightly touched down, as if it were from elsewhere, while somehow also seeming to have always been there. It aligns itself with the street edge – gently hovering above the boulevard, tracking the gentle slope of the site on its flanks, and solidly anchoring itself to the community,” says Ted Watson, AIA, a juror and a partner and design leader at MJMA Architects in Toronto, Canada. The contrast of the windows with the innovative use of economical pre-cast concrete was also applauded.
“The function is very clear and deliberate – nothing wasted, an exercise in efficiency and clarity,” said juror Chris Kastelic, AIA, a principal at Perkins and Will Architects “I just love how they chose to lift the solid boxes to expose the unexpected strip of windows. The exterior is just so powerful.”
Each year, Athletic Business selects 10 projects from around the world to receive a Facility of Merit Award. A rotating panel of architects selects projects on the basis of plan efficiency; functional relationships and measures taken to maximize use of space; interior finishes, detailing and color schemes; exterior design; relationship of building to site; and cost of construction for value received. Of the 10 projects selected as a 2021 Facility of Merit, project budgets ranged from the LBC’s $7 million to $150 million, with most projects above $20 million.
The project is featured in the October issue of the publication as well as online.
Jurors for the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Central State Region 2021 design awards were also compelled by the wellness center design’s innovative and simple use of materials and form. This year’s AIA CSR jury awarded 20 projects of the 211 submitted. Winning projects were selected for:
• Innovation: Going beyond convention and making the work extraordinary.
• A high level of resolution of craft, and precision, and detailing.
Being resourceful; doing more with less, an economy of means.
• Community impact, making the community it serves better.
“I … love the composition, in particular how the site was cleverly manipulated to create an apron that surrounds the project and it acts to really extend the interior spaces outside,” said jury chair Brandon Pace, FAIA, founder of Sanders Pace Architecture. “This move really helped it feel like a civic community building and I love the simplicity and durability of the interior finishes as well which felt appropriate for the use.”
OPN Architects designed the 33,380-square-foot center. This is OPN Architects first Honor Award from the AIA Central States Region in the firm’s 42-year history. The wellness center received an Honor Award from AIA Iowa in 2020 and the City of Mount Vernon received an All-Star Community Award for the project in September 2021.