page_title: Flushing Meadows Natatorium
section_title: Interior design
hierarchical_section_title: Flushing Meadows Natatorium / Description / Interior design
caption_attribution_description: English: Interior lobby space of the Natatorium. Image by Jennifer Chen.
context_page_description: The Flushing Meadows Corona Park Natatorium and Ice Rink, also known as the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Pool and Rink or Flushing Meadows Natatorium, is a 110,000-square-foot facility in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, New York City, with an Olympic-sized pool and an NHL-standard rink. Built in 2008, the $66.3 million project is the first indoor public pool to open in New York City in four decades. Initially, the building was intended to serve as the venue for water polo events during the 2012 Summer Olympics, but when the city's bid was lost to London, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation proceeded to build the pool anyway. The result is an innovative building with 130-foot-high twin masts and a swooping roof form. The masts are an architectural feature extending up into the Queens skyline as well as the structural supports for the cable-stayed roof. This design provides the clear spans necessary to house an Olympic swimming pool along with an ice skating rink.
  The Flushing Meadows Natatorium was designed by Handel Architects in association with Kevin Hom Architects.
context_section_description: The rectangular pavilion holds both the pool and the ice rink end to end. This placement contrasts opposing environments: liquid and frozen water, humid and dry environments, bare skin and bundled bodies. Constituents can enjoy the facilities year round. The building, a 110,000 square foot facility, engages its natural surroundings. The curtain wall wraps around the western façade, allowing swimmers to engage with the natural environment outside, from flowering crabapple trees in spring, to vibrant maple orchards in fall.  As users make their way from the lobby to the pool level, they circulate in a spiral path that offers different perspectives of the entry plaza outside and the rest of the surroundings. The large plot of land, which once housed many international pavilions in the 1939 and 1964 world's fairs, has now been paved over with acres of greenery.
  The siting and procession of the building refers to the World's Fair that preceded its existence. With entrances on both the east and west side following a radial geometry, the designer draws on the historic Fountain of the Planets exhibition. A plaza is located at the eastern entrance of the building that extends from three paths that circulate to the building's park spaces.  On the western façade, another entrance opens onto a path that leads to 8 soccer fields, the Flushing Meadows Golf Center, the Industry Pond, and the Unisphere, all of which are on the westernmost part of the 1250-acre park.
caption: Interior lobby space of the Natatorium
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