WHAT

Ideas

WHERE

Louisville, KY

WHEN

2018

Fully synthesizing the unique program for a new Boys and Girls Club with much-needed community green space in the Smoketown neighborhood, the notion of “A Park First” initiated the design approach to The Wheelhouse Project. The site of the former Hillerich & Bradsby’s Louisville Slugger factory becomes a fluid, malleable surface where building forms emanate from the earth and naturally blend with the landscape and neighborhood beyond; the buildings become the landscape. This departure from a more traditional form-making method of simply placing buildings on the terrain with landscaping as decoration provides the neighborhood with a community icon and captures the imagination of the children within. Central to the plan is an organic circulation spine which fuses the park features, club activities, and community uses through a symbiotic relationship that meanders, intertwines within, and over the architecture.

Joseph & Joseph partnered with Gresham Smith (Louisville) to work on this proposal and renderings.