The headquarters building is two stories and circular in plan, an iconic shape befitting an important civic institution, with a park pathway extending through it to delineate the field house from the headquarters. (The architect also master planned the 17-acre park). The park pathway is informed by Frederick Law Olmsted's park and boulevard system for Chicago, in which large parks are connected via landscaped boulevards. As the park pathway intersects the building, it widens to create two open-air courtyards which bring light and air into the center of the building and create outdoor meeting, recreation and relaxation space for headquarters and field house staff and neighborhood residents.
Headquarters office space (for 205 Park District staff members) is organized in alternating bands of enclosed rooms (offices, meeting rooms) and open office areas to support collaboration and provide for future flexibility. The second-floor office space extends over the field house allowing views into the gym below. The staff break room is situated at the heart of the second floor and borders a courtyard on one side with the gymnasium on the other, allowing CPD staff to watch a basketball game while they eat their lunch, for example. CPD staff have direct access to field house without going outside through a connecting stair and elevator. A covered outdoor terrace on the second level, with views of the adjacent park and playing fields, has direct access from the field house below can be reserved for parties and events, or used as a relaxation or meeting space by CPD staff.
The building’s material palette includes reclaimed Chicago common brick, salvaged from two demolished buildings in the area, to root the design in the local building culture and foreground the theme of reclaiming the site for the community. The building perimeter is glazed in a bronze-tinted glass in a unitized glazing system, and curved, expanded metal screens in champagne-anodized aluminum provide sun shading to improve energy efficiency and give the building a distinctive appearance. The building has a cost-effective structural system of metal bar joists spanning in between masonry bearing walls running in parallel, and a green roof system mitigates the urban “heat island” effect. Inside, ash wood reclaimed from local trees stricken by the emerald ash borer is used in furniture, wall cladding and gym flooring.