Kenyon Athletic Center

The Kenyon Athletic Center (KAC) is an athletic center and student union serving the Kenyon College and Gambier village communities in Ohio. It was designed by architect Graham Gund and opened to the public on 25 January 2006. The facility cost approximately $70 million to build.

Plans were begun in 2001 for an athletic center to replace the then-outdated Ernst Center and Wertheimer Fieldhouse that had previously served Kenyon College. The building was originally intended to be called the Fitness, Recreation, and Athletic facility (FRA). Designs were made in collaboration with coaches and other athletics personnel, such as swimming coach Jim Steen, who was consulted while making designs for the "state-of-the-art"natatorium.

The KAC was built on the south end of Kenyon's campus, over the site of the former Wertheimer Fieldhouse, which was demolished to make way for the new facility. Construction began in 2003 and the facility was first opened to the public on 25 January 2006, two semesters after the originally projected date of completion (May 2005) and almost three years after the beginning of construction.

The athletic center consists of a hangar-like structure approximately 540 feet (160 m) long and 300 feet (91 m) wide, or 265,000 square feet (24,600 m²) in total, with an arching roof supported by concrete columns in the center of the building and along the perimeter. A frequently noted feature of the building is the use of glass to create an "open" feel and provide natural lighting—most of the outer wall is made of baffled glass panels. There is also integratedness between the different areas of the facility: most interior walls do not reach the ceiling, making it possible to see and hear activities in other parts of the building.

A key feature of the building is its natatorium, which serves as the principal training for the "Lords" and "Ladies" Kenyon swimming teams; the Lords have won 31 consecutive NCAA Division III championships, making them the team with the most NCAA titles in any sport, and the Ladies have won 23 (nonconsecutive) titles. The natatorium includes an olympic-size swimming pool with a "state-of-the-art regenerative media filter" (which, it has been claimed, saves 600,000 gallons of water a year), and is climate-controlled and hermetically sealed off from the rest of the facility.

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