Southeast Aurora Recreation Center and Fieldhouse

Horizon Glass delivered the curtain wall and glazing scope for the Southeast Aurora Recreation Center and Fieldhouse, a 77,000-square-foot civic facility for the City of Aurora’s Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Department, designed by Populous and built by Saunders Construction. The project—the city’s second ground-up recreation center in over four decades—includes a 23,000-square-foot fieldhouse, the first indoor fieldhouse in Aurora.

The building’s architecture draws on its mountain-adjacent setting, with an undulating glulam “”canyon roof”” that appears to float above a continuous glass clerestory. Horizon’s scope centered on approximately 13,000 square feet of custom arched Kawneer 1600UT unitized curtain wall spanning the length of the open canyon entryway, delivering the expansive Rocky Mountain views and daylighting that define the interior experience. The curtain wall follows the building’s elevated “”figure-8″” running track, where the path rises and falls along the glass, and brings natural light into the gymnasium, fitness areas, and aquatics spaces.

Executing a curved, high-performance unitized system against an exposed mass timber structure required tight coordination of glazing tolerances, anchorage, and sightlines so the curtain wall would read as a clean, continuous arc beneath the timber roofline. The result is a signature glass enclosure that anchors the building’s connection to its landscape.