William Boyce Thompson Field House
Exeter, NH – A new $34 million field house recently opened on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, allowing the school to provide year-round athletic and training facilities for track and field, wrestling, tennis, baseball, and softball.
The 155,000sf William Boyce Thompson Field House, designed by ARC/ Architectural Resources Cambridge to meet the competition and recreational needs of the entire school community, includes a 200-meter NCAA-certified track, four tennis courts, bleacher seating for 500 spectators, and a mezzanine level with a wrestling center and multipurpose room that overlook the track.
Sustainable design features are integrated to target LEED Gold certification. Large windows let in abundant natural light, provide views to campus, and increase ventilation, eliminating the need for air conditioning in most of the building.
Another major sustainable feature is a 1,552-panel solar array on the building’s roof, the largest solar panel installation at any school in New Hampshire, which will provide the majority of the electricity to the new field house and is expected to save the school over $2 million over the system’s lifetime.
The field house is the first implementation project in the school’s South Campus Master Plan, developed by ARC, and will be joined in April by the David E. Goel and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance.
