Overall, I must say that BGSU’s Perry Field House is a wonderful building that is in fairly good shape for being 18 years old. I was particularly impressed at layout and size of the main entrance, information desk, offices, and conference room. Our entire class was in the lobby and various other rooms and it still seemed spacious. The designers seemed to plan ahead in this respect to the building. The exterior of the building is rather plain, but it still looks better than many other buildings on campus. The masons added some extra brickwork detailing that looks sharp. And at first glance, the main track and field room and football room are nicely laid out as well.
It wasn’t until our guide, Scott, pointed out a few serious design flaws that I had some second thoughts of the building. I had thought that the track and field room was meant to be just as a place where students good practice at various events, similar to the Rec Center. And in that respect the room is adequate. But as it turns out, the room houses some pretty large competitions at both the collegiate and high school levels. There is almost no room for bleachers, and when they are being used they are on the inside of the track facing outwards so that observers have to turn backwards to see most of the race. According to our book, most codes require that bleacher s have railings above 42 inches, and I believe those bleachers had them. Interestingly, most of the codes are written after 1999, and because those bleachers were built in 1992, they may or may not be meeting other codes. Furthermore, our book states on page 307 that a designer must give “incredible attention to facility layout, including plenty of space for equipment storage”. Clearly this was not as the storage room is crowded with bulky sports equipment. It has gotten so bad that they wanting to build a pole barn behind the field house.
In other respects, the building meets the standards in our book with ease. For example, it recommends a 10 foot unobstructed zone of space around the basketball courts. Our courts do that by being surrounded by the track and having the nets suspended from the ceiling. Also, enough height was given to the building all around to include events such as pole vaulting.