US firm Studio Gang has completed its transformation of a coal-burning power plant into the wellness-focused student union for Beloit College in Wisconsin with a suspended running track looping through the building.
The 100-year-old plant building, which is located between the campus of the arts college and Rock River in Beloit, was updated to include a fitness centre and a gymnasium with a three-lane track and an eight-lane swimming pool.
Studio Gang added a pedestrian bridge and a polycarbonate field house to the building
Originally called Blackhawk Generating Station, the plant was first built in 1913 by Wisconsin Power and Light. It was expanded in 1927 and again in the mid-1940s before being decommissioned in 2010.
Studio Gang's project for Beloit College, called Powerhouse, retained and updated the original red brick, yellow brick and concrete structures, and added a new 17,000-square-foot (1,579-square-metre) volume made from translucent polycarbonate walls and steel framing. Large windows are slotted between the translucent panels
As such, Powerhouse is segmented into three volumes that form the arrangement of three key facilities: the swimming pool, the track and the field house.
The translucent structure on the northern side contains a field house. The panels are arranged at angles to one another to create slender long gaps for windows in between. At night, when artificial lights are turned on, the entire structure glows up.
The suspended running track loops throu...