Curbed — “10 High-Design Boathouses Around the World”

October 17, 2017

“When it comes to eye-popping design, museums and concert halls tend to get all the shine. But there’s another building type worth the attention of architecture lovers: the boathouse.

Boathouses built in recent years, largely for colleges and private clubs, are adopting a distinctly contemporary style. In a crop of modern boathouses, designers are acknowledging waterside sites and the beauty of the sport. …

Studio Gang Architects, the Chicago-based firm helmed by MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ grant winner Jeanne Gang and most recently in the spotlight for for its National Building Museum Summer installation and planned expansion of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Natural History Museum, designed this boathouse along the Chicago River. Opened in 2013, the 22,620-square-foot complex includes a stunning indoor rowing tank, which comes in handy when the seasons change and it’s too cold for outdoor practice.

Studio Gang took inspiration from the angles of a crew team’s oar strokes using timelapses of rowers’ movements, then built the roof to match those angles. The Eleanor Boathouse at Park 571, a sister project to the WMS Boathouse that opened late last year, was built using the same truss shapes.”