Chicago Park District Headquarters Info < 8 of 17 >

The Chicago Park District Headquarters is an 78,000 sf building comprised of headquarters office space for the Chicago Park District staff and field house with gymnasium, fitness and club rooms located in a new 17-acre park reclaimed from a former brownfield site in the Brighton Park neighborhood. Like historical Chicago fieldhouses, the building is set into the park to give it a dignified presence and to organize the park space around it. The headquarters building is two stories and circular in plan, an iconic shape befitting an important civic institution, with a park pathway extending through it to delineate the field house from the headquarters. As the park pathway intersects the building, it widens to create two open-air courtyards which bring light and air into the center of the building and create outdoor meeting, recreation and relaxation space for headquarters and field house staff and neighborhood residents. Office space is organized in alternating bands of enclosed rooms and open office areas to support collaboration and for future flexibility. The building’s material palette includes reclaimed Chicago common brick to root the design in the local building culture.