Architecture Students Design and Build a Modern Prefab Fieldhouse

A class at Virginia Tech empowers future architects to build a prefab baseball fieldhouse from start to finish.

“For us, the most important thing is that a single group of students sees a project from beginning to fruition.” Virginia Tech architecture professors Keith and Marie Zawistowski met while working at the Rural Studio, the famed community architecture program at Auburn University, so it makes sense that when they became teachers themselves, their students would get the chance to engage in hands-on learning. The Sharon Fieldhouse, a minimalist structure set against the Appalachian highlands in Clifton Forge, Virginia, was the result of design/buildLAB, their prefab building class, which empowers students to engage with the community, create a design by consensus, and build a structure, all within a year. Dwell spoke with the Zawistowskis and student Ryan Myers about the class, building for the community, and planning for foul balls.

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The students worked within an $118,000 budget to construct the 2,000-square-foot fieldhouse. One of the students, Ryan Myers, recalls their first impression of the field—an old trailer with flat tires selling concessions and a porta-potty—and thought they could do better. “There’s a whole section of the county where people have limited means, and kids would have to drive 30 minutes away to play in the neighboring town,” says teacher Marie Zawistowski. “This structure helps 400 kids in the local Little League.”

Organized east to west, the steel screen varies in density and supports an angled roof, providing shade without blocking the breeze. Students crafted the furniture out of white oak from a local sawmill, and utilized prefab construction methods to cut costs and speed up the project to meet their tight deadline. “It’s a great site on the side of a mountain in Appalachia looking out into this valley,” says Myers. "There’s all this context, but at the same time, it’s an open field, so there’s no context. We got to respond to how the site is being used.”

During game day, the varying width and spacing for the steel frames creates a spectrum of shadows that fan out across the lawn.

At one point, the student architects considered including a translucent glass façade, but budget realities and foul balls changed their minds. “The kids were playing games while we were constructing the fieldhouse,” says Myers. “We were a little worried about where a foul ball might go.”

Myers says the community had a positive reaction to the project and provided feedback during the entire process, from critiquing the 15 original proposals to opening day.

"As a student, to see how much effort goes into taking a project from drawings on a piece of paper to something made of steel, wood, and nails, you find out architecture has weight,” says Myers. “It makes you think about things in a different way.”

The current class at Virginia Tech will further develop the master plan for the site, which includes adding a press box and dugouts and continuing to turn the complex into a community resource. “It’s not just a matter of meeting budget, it’s about creative problem solving,” says Keith Zawistowski about the class. “They get a sense that architecture can solve everyday problems.”