Like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, the new Singing Hills Recreation Center is one of my favorite pastimes and the best piece of public architecture that came into being in this city during the pandemic. An uncompromisingly modern design that combines the strict discipline of an Austrian naval captain with the optimistic warmth of a nun who has become a governess with a love for nature.
The $ 10.5 million, 25,000-square-foot facility that opened in January is a good thing whether you’re 16 or 65, with a basketball court, communal facilities, and a separate senior center, all under one roof .
The design by Perkins and Will’s Dallas office adds sophisticated architecture to a neighborhood that is normally ignored. The landscape is the work of Kevin Sloan, who advocates indigenous, sustainable planting, albeit on a small scale.
The Singing Hills Recreation Center in south Dallas.
(James Steinkamp)
“It’s a lighthouse,” says Ron Stelmarski, principal at Perkins and Will and lead architect on the project. “We hope it brings people south of Dallas.”
It should. The center is perched on a limestone cliff and overlooks a grassy slope cut by a concrete retaining wall. Arriving by car, the building unfolds dramatically along a loop that runs from the hillside to and around the top of the ridge, offering a number of changing perspectives of the building.
But you don’t have to travel by car to get a winning arrival sequence. Perhaps the best view of the center is from the Camp Wisdom train station platform on the DART blue line, making it a convenient place for commuting before or after work. The center is directly adjacent to the train station and is separated from it by a beautiful public square that can be used for outdoor performances and gatherings. “They want each side to be a front,” says Stelmarski. “It doesn’t really have a back.”
The lines of the facility are as clear and straightforward as a formation of well-rehearsed children’s singers; a long horizontal beam, interrupted only in the middle by a double high entrance atrium. The south and east façades, facing the bus stop and the parking lot, are defined by vertical gray metal panels and matching windows, which give the composition an alternating do-re-do rhythm.
The details are skilfully handled: instead of placing all the elements flush, the frames of the metal panels are pushed forward slightly, which gives the process visual contrasts and shadows. Where opacity is required to shield mechanical spaces, there is white Texas conch stone imprinted with the state’s fossil history.
At the top, the roof slides over the wall surface and creates shady space along the edges of the building. The underside of this overhang is lined with southern pine, which gives the otherwise monotonous building a caramel-colored warmth.
Visitors to the center are greeted by a rather white, circular information desk in the dramatic entrance atrium. Underneath is a white terrazzo floor; Above this, the southern pine slatted ceiling is illuminated by needle lights on exposed steel cross frames. Wide windows look out over the sloping hill and the Dallas skyline. It is a decidedly modern space in a decidedly modern building and a reminder that we should say “so long” and “goodbye” to those who proclaim to the weary tropics that modern architecture is inherently cold and inhuman. The aesthetics here are as appealing as a brown paper package tied with twine.
“People come in and say, ‘Ah, that’s so pretty,’” says Valerie Thomas, who looks after the park and recreation department’s facility.
The highlight of the center is the basketball court, the floor of which is set into the slope one level below the rest of the facility. On the slope side, a floor-to-ceiling window wall looks out onto a lush tree canopy. On the opposite side there is a grandstand that takes advantage of this view. (If there’s criticism here, it’s the potential for glare on the court during games.)
Sinking the courtyard was architecturally smart as it allowed the center to maintain a single roofline, which reduced its overall size while also giving a sense of unity.
Other spaces in the center are set off by a double-loading corridor that narrows as it moves away from the lobby, creating a false perspective that gives an added sense of depth.
Facilities include two large multipurpose conference rooms that can be connected and served by a teaching kitchen. There’s a gym (while you do your exercises you can look over the tree line at the downtown skyline in the distance), a computer room with 16 Mac workstations, and even a digital editing studio where you might be able to edit an album of the family songbook.
At the other end of the hall is the senior citizen center with its own entrance to the outside and a surrounding terrace for outdoor seating. “You get a rather calm side,” says Stelmarski. The interiors here are of a domestic nature: a comfortably furnished living room and a play area with a table tennis table.
If you’re looking for smart, traffic-oriented development in Dallas, you can feel like a lonely goatherd climbing an endless mountain. But the fact that the city is the builder for such an elaborate project gives rise to optimism and a feeling that the city is beginning to find ways to escape the trap of its own history. And right now, the Singing Hills center is striking exactly the right note.
[ad_1]