United Therapeutics Field House
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
Project Team: Frank Harmon, FAIA, and Tika Hicks
Photographer: Richard Leo Johnson
Problem Statement:
United Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, needed a 5136-square-foot field house for an Olympic-sized soccer field built for employees and their families. The structure needed to provide changing areas, showers, and restrooms for two teams of 10 to 12 people, as well as a gathering area with a fireplace. The structure also had to accommodate necessary support spaces—maintenance/storage room, mechanical/electrical rooms—and each changing room needed a janitor’s closet.
Design Response:
The field house creates a dramatic gateway to the soccer field. The teams pass through a stone “wall” via a central breezeway with changing areas on either side of the breezeway. Six-foot-deep roof overhangs provide “porches” on the entry (east) and field (west) sides of the building. The outdoor Gathering Area is located at the southern end of the building.
Regionally appropriate construction materials include native building stone, cypress siding, cypress tongue-in-groove ceilings and soffits, and ground-concrete-and-bluestone floors. A standing-seam metal roof reflects heat away from the interior in the summer.
The UT Field House recently received a 2013 Merit Design Award from the American Institute of Architects, North Carolina Component.
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