engineer shared standard baseline details, and the team tailored those details to align with design goals. The structures were highly customized with high-end exterior and interior finishes, light wood tones, added windows and energy-efficient systems, resulting in a first-class, aesthetically pleasing complex. Each building has its own distinct space, personality, scale and interior detailing, giving athletes in each sport an individual sense of identity while maintaining commonalities with other Clemson buildings to unify the new sports complex with the rest of the campus. Empowering athletes through design “In every endeavor, Clemson holds itself to a standard of excellence,” said HNTB Design Principal Eric Maxwell. “When they start a team, their posture is to invest and position the athletes to immediately be competitive and win.” The 21,000-square-foot gymnastics operations and training facility boasts a lobby, practice gym, offices, locker room, lounge and training room. A large expanse of polycarbonate panels on the south and southwest sides allows sunlight to filter through a line of trees outside, bathing the interior in an ultrasoft light that helps enhance performance. The gymnastics coaches wanted the exercise floor to be the centerpiece of the training space. Designers brought that vision to life by creating a light-filled lobby that provides spectators and visiting summer camp families with unobstructed views of the exercise floor.
To accommodate practices, when gymnasts require a mirrored wall, the design team created a sliding partition of mirrored panels that expands for practices and contracts for compact storage. The training space also features hydraulic lifts that allow for effortless adjustment to the landing pad height, enhancing the flexibility of practice techniques for the gymnasts. “The gymnastics facility is a great example of the HNTB/Garvin display of teamwork and commitment to the project,” Sabin said. “Garvin echoed the Athletic Department’s desire for a lot of natural light, and HNTB’s experience using polycarbonate panels and other substrates allowed that light to be diffused so it did not interrupt training in the facility. “Together, they created the most beautiful aspect of the Women’s Sports Complex. Driving up the hill toward the complex, people see the wall face of polycarbonate panels with the largest Clemson paw graphic we’ve ever placed on a facility. Inside is the perfect shadowed outline of that paw through the polycarbonate, with all this natural light coming in. It’s very well designed.” The 9,000-square-foot lacrosse operations building encompasses coaches’ offices, locker rooms, a player lounge, nutrition center, team meeting room, and athletic training room. Across the parking lot at the lacrosse building, the lobby serves as a jewel box display case for Clemson’s paw print brand mark and lacrosse team equipment displayed on interior walls. Interior spaces emphasize the building’s connection to the adjacent field: the head coach’s office and the team
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