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Clayton Community Youth Center   Allison Park, PA

In the mid 1990's Memorial Park Presbyterian Church purchased a small house adjacent to their main building and, with minimal renovations, began to utilize it to house its youth ministry and outreach programs. The burgeoning program quickly outgrew this tiny structure and it became apparent that some type of expansion would be required. Once the program was fully developed and numerous construction scenarios were studied, what began as an addition to the existing house ultimately became a new, 8,900 square-foot structure on the same site - the Clayton Community Youth Center.

The architects were charged with creating an inexpensive, voluminous structure that would house classrooms, offices, and a multipurpose room that could support everything from volleyball to rock bands. The building would have to harmonize with the existing church architecture, while presenting a distinctively different appearance that would appeal to children and teens. In addition, the building required a setback variance because of its close proximity to the street and adjacent residences, therefore the new structure would have to present a low, residentially scaled profile that would conceal its internal bulk.

The final design achieved these goals by wrapping a low, wood-framed "L" around the tall masonry multipurpose room. These two elements are covered with low-sloped, asymmetrical roofs that minimize sightlines from the street and entrance drive. The formal "front" of the building, designed to harmonize with the adjacent sanctuary, is a tall lobby space that faces internally toward the parking lot, oriented perpendicular to the existing church in order to create a campus dialogue that can be continued by further facility expansions. The Youth Center entrance is located on the corner of the building, oriented toward the entry drive in front of the main church.

The exterior materials are primarily brick (in a color chosen to harmonize with, but not mimic the primary color of the sanctuary building) and brightly-painted horizontal cement-fiber siding, which was introduced at the Youth Center in order to minimize the visual mass and to convey a sense of scale and playfulness akin to a classic church camp structure. This aesthetic is carried further by the varied scale of windows, the shed-like enclosure of the entry vestibule and canopy, and the four shed dormers that act to break-up the scale of the large roof and provide day lit "nodes" along the interior of the main corridor.

The internal life of the building centers around the lobby café, which is a fundamental gathering space and "hang-out" for youth before, during and after activities in the facility. Designed to combine lobby with lounge, the tall glass windows define the actual kitchen, which features a central "coffee bar" with barstool seating, enclosed by a low grid ceiling and intimate lighting. A lower ceiling encloses table seating to the side. The central focus of the lobby is the "Graffiti Wall," a sloping drywall element that will be used as a changing canvas for youth art projects. The concrete block walls that enclose the multipurpose classroom are left unpainted, with a clear sealer used instead which provides an inexpensive, durable surface, while presenting a youthful "garage band" aesthetic (apart from the expected "institutional painted-block" look). The generous amount of glazing in the lobby, in addition to providing much daylight, creates a sense of transparency to the rest of the church grounds, allowing youth waiting for rides to observe and be visible, as well as exposing the internal activities to the rest of the church community in a vibrant and welcoming manner.

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