Crummell Community Center

The Crummell Community Center is designed to modernize the historic Crummell School, restoring and adapting it for use as a dynamic community facility. The new athletic addition and the renovation of the historic building will help address Ivy City’s current lack of accessible, sustainable, and safe facilities for recreation, education, and community services, while also honoring the legacy of the Crummell School and the neighborhood it once served.

This project proposes a one-story addition that creates a triad of buildings – the historic building, the fitness center, and the gymnasium – unified by a connector for exhibits and community gathering. Programs such as classrooms, lounges, a computer room, a demonstration kitchen, and multipurpose rooms are placed in the historic building where they can optimize the existing floor plan. The gymnasium, fitness rooms, yoga rooms, and dance studios are located in the new addition where they are allowed appropriately sized spaces and ceiling heights. To highlight rather than detract from the existing beauty of the historic building, the new addition is subservient to the existing architecture.

In addition to restoring and augmenting the usability of the historic building, the community center project involves revitalizing the concrete lot with landscaping and programming, converting it into usable spaces such as outdoor fitness spaces, a playground, and a community garden while retaining the existing outdoor sport courts.