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PARK AND CEMETERY. 
PRACTICAL TYPES OF RECREATION BUILDINGS 
By Roland Cotterill , Secretary Seattle Park Commission. 
The problem of providing a substantial 
vet economical field house or recreation 
building for use as a social center or in 
connection with a public playground is one 
which is confronting many small towns and 
cities that have observed the wonderful 
success of such institutions in Chicago and 
other large cities and desired to in a meas- 
ure keep pace with the present day move- 
ment to provide modern recreation facili- 
ties. 
The matter of expense, both in construc- 
tion cost and in operation, has been a 
barrier to many cities which have been 
ambitious to provide such buildings, but it 
lias remained for Seattle, the thriving 
young metropolis of the Pacific Northwest, 
to demonstrate that a modern field house, 
practical in design and economical in op- 
eration, can be constructed for consider- 
ably less than one-half of the cost gener- 
ally ascribed to such buildings and yet be 
institution which will meet the require- 
ments of the average community. 
In 1911 the Seattle Park Commission 
sent Superintendent J. W. Thompson and 
Secretary Roland Cotterill on an inspec- 
tion trip to about fifteen American cities, 
to particularly study field house buildings 
and bath houses, and the result of their 
investigation has been embodied in the con- 
struction of the Seattle type of field house 
and the bath house at Alki Beach. 
These men were greatly impressed with 
the diversified facilities provided in the 
elaborate system of recreation buildings in 
Chicago, but, of course, smaller cities lack 
the means to provide such luxurious in- 
stitutions, hence a modified type of build- 
ing, embracing practically all of the fea- 
tures of the Chicago buildings, was worked 
out with Director of Playgrounds J. H. 
Stine and Bebb & Mendell, local archi- 
tects, resulting in a practical, economical 
and serviceable field house which can be 
constructed and equipped for $25,000, or 
about one-fourth of the cost of the Chi- 
cago buildings. 
Four buildings of this type have been 
constructed in Seattle within the last year 
and various authorities who have inspected 
them pronounce them model structures for 
the average city which desires an econom- 
ical yet serviceable social center building. 
These buildings are of heavy frame, 
slow-burning construction, with ornamental 
plaster exterior, two stories and basement, 
the general dimensions being 50x90 feet, 
exclusive of vestibules, porches, etc. In 
the basement are located boiler and fuel 
rooms and storage, while in opposite wings 
of the building are the locker rooms and 
shower baths for both men and women. 
On the main floor the central section is 
taken up with the general social hall and 
game room, with supervisors’ office facing 
thereon and stairways to the upper story 
leading out on either side. On each side 
of the social hall, occupying opposite wings 
of building, are a group of club rooms for 
the various civic, social and educational 
organizations which develop in connection 
with social center work, there being separate 
quarters for men and women, although all 
of the rooms of the lower floor, by a sys- 
tem of sliding doors, may be used together 
for any large function. The entire upper 
floor is given over to a combination gym- 
nasium and auditorium, with a stage at one 
end, with regulation proscenium arch and 
full scenic and electrical equipment. Sep- 
BALLARD PLAYP1EL_D 
MODERN RECREATION BUILDINGS IN SEATTLE. 
