Activity Center

CAMP COLE

The new Camp Cole Activity Center enables this innovative organization to offer year-round programming and event spaces. Camp Cole’s state-of-the-art 40-acre campus served more than 2,000 individuals with disabilities, illnesses, and life challenges in its first two years of operation but had limited capacity for indoor programming. Camp Cole needed a fully accessible and inclusive building to host recreational activities for campers, parents, and siblings throughout the year.

Design for the Activity Center combines elements of a gymnasium, art studio, yoga studio, and library. Camp Cole’s commitment to accessibility for all underpins key building design concepts such as flexibility, indoor-outdoor connection, and ease of navigation and access. The new building references the existing facilities on the Camp Cole campus while advancing the organization’s mission even further.

The new 20,000 sf “Artnasium” includes a basketball gym, an artist workshop, a stage, a movement studio, four breakout rooms, and a sensory room. The gym space has an open floor plan with basketball goals and court lines. A built-in ramp provides easy access to an elevated stage. The art room accommodates 35 students and provides built-in storage for supplies. Glass garage doors on either side of the Activity Center space create an open-air environment that incorporates a canteen and a future rock-climbing wall.  A sensory room includes swings, bounce seats, climbing walls, soft flooring, projected imagery, and audio controls that allow the space to evolve for active, stimulating, or calming uses.

This project is currently under construction.