The Lawrenceville School Tsai Commons and Field House

Resulting from Sasaki’s Lawrenceville School master plan, the new Tsai Commons and Field House repositions student life for the entire campus community.

The design unites together recreation, wellness, athletics, and dining into one interconnected environment, and fosters a culture of connection and support.

Positioned at a crossroads of the Lawrenceville School campus, the Tsai Commons and Field House includes renovations to the school’s historic field house as well as new construction that introduces new dining, recreation and athletic venues for the campus community. These spaces support diverse programming centered around student wellness, and include the dining hall, an eight-lane swimming pool, the ice rink, basketball courts, and multipurpose fitness rooms– along with spacious back-of-house and locker rooms facilities to support programming.

A departure from traditional recreational structures which are often characterized by large, imposing structures and uninterrupted horizontal volumes, the new Tsai Commons and Field House maintains the scale and material palette reflective of its surrounding campus structures. To accomplish this while meeting programming requirements and operating within the site’s constraints, large venues such as the swimming pool, ice rink, and basketball courts are tucked into the sloping site topography, taking advantage of the height difference of the site in section while leaving the upper floor as a concourse level for user and spectator visibility into the venues below.

Inspired by the existing field house’s silhouette, the new field house honors the fillet curved profile and gives the building its unique character by joining two straight sections with a curved peak. This simple move of concave ceilings creates a profile of curves that allow for lateral light through the clerestories at the dining hall and bring volume to the pool and ice rink, while articulating the facility’s design into a series of distinct and interconnected pavilions.