Protrusion / Interruption

For ARCH 554: Open House - Barbara Materia & Spencer McNeil

Program: Athletic Club
Size: 320’ x 125’ x 480’
Floor Area: 372,000 sf.

Protrusion / Interruption is an athletic club for downtown Chicago that argues for greater enrichment of participants' lives through spontaneous interaction. To achieve this, the building has been organized into distinct programmatic zones, some accessible to the general public and others accessible only to members of the club, that have been arranged to attempt to maximize the number of unique programmatic adjacencies.

Just as this athletic club would interrupt its surroundings in the River North neighborhood with rare publicly accessibly facilities, the public volumes interrupt the private areas, forcing adjacency and enabling random encounters between the two demographics. With each public volume having a different program, interactions between as many different public and private programmed zones as possible are facilitated.

The first floor contains the entrance lobby, accessible by both the public and private, as well as utility space and private elevator lobbies at either end of the plan.

The tenth floor contains public retail space and athletic facilities, adjacent to a private performance area and flex space.

The twenty-fifth floor has public leisure spaces in the form of miniature golf and shuffleboard, adjacent to private living units and a smoothie bar.

The top floor has a public bar and dining area adjacent to a private swimming pool, yoga studio, and bowling alley.

Section drawings