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Architects: Woodhouse Tinucci Architects
- Area: 18000 ft²
- Year: 2016
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Photographs:Bill Timmerman
Text description provided by the architects. The Rosewood Beach Development projects integrates four new buildings into Rosewood Park's splendid beachfront by blending them into a canonical waterside element—a 1,500ft-long boardwalk that hugs the bottom of the bluff, connecting access points at each end and opening to Lake Michigan along its east side. Program elements are housed in simple, small-scale, low-profile units strung out along the boardwalk like kiosks or pavilions. Building elements are long, low and thin, largely transparent in the north-south direction, and topped with boardwalk planks so that all views up and down the beach and from the park above are fully preserved. At the north, the environmental education pavilion is a large, open space, backed up by a thin service bar containing restrooms and storage. The pavilion's north and south walls are sliding glass doors which open to decks outside, fully connecting it to the boardwalk and allowing views right through the pavilion. Its east wall is mullionless glass, giving an unimpeded view of the lake.
Walking south, park users pass tree-shaded benches to reach the welcome pavilion (and life guard office), then move on to an outdoor dining area with seating and tables defined by the refreshment pavilion and the beach restroom pavilion.
Materials are natural, simple, durable, easily maintainable, “beachy”: Local stone was quarried from southern Wisconsin to clad the buildings, blending them into the natural habitat of the bluff beyond. Ipe decking and cedar siding form the boardwalk and cladding of the individual pavilions and large quantities of operable glass blend interior and exterior and allow for panoramic views of the lake. The glazing on the project is provided with a micro ceramic frit, invisible to the human eye, but able to be seen by birds and reducing bird strikes to a minimum.
