Clark Street Beach Building

Evanston, Illinois

The new beach building forms a gateway connecting 11-acre Centennial Park to Clark Street Beach on Evanston's lakefront, providing amenities and support facilities for visitors to both. Its exterior cladding is regional Lannon stone salvaged from the nearby building it replaces.  Its softly sloped roof plane allows natural light and ventilation to pour into the high-walled rest rooms and deposits rainwater runoff in the new 30ft-wide belt of dune grasses which mediates between the park's trees and lawns and the wide-open sandy beach. As the Midwestern seasons change, so does the building. Large metal shutters swing wide when the beach season opens, showing summery greens and yellows, then swing shut to button it up at the end of the season, showing wintery grays and ochres.

Recognition

2010 Design Evanston Design Award

Evanston: 150 Years 150 Places (Evanston, IL: Design Evanston, 2013)

Evanston Roundtable, 08.17.2010

Project Data

Area/Budget: 3,500sf / $1,200,000

Scope: 3,500sf building with concessions, lifeguard station & park restrooms in Evanston lakefront park

Project Team: David Woodhouse, Andy Tinucci (project architect), Brian Foote, Rea Koukiou

Rubinos & Mesia Engineers (structural); Wolff Landscape Architecture (landscape); Terra Engineering (civil); dbHMS Engineering (mep); GA Johnson & Son (general contractor)

Photographer: Woodhouse Tinucci Architects