For the Field House at Pompano Beach’s Youth Sports Complex in Florida, Brooks+Scarpa was seeking a flexible, durable and cost-effective material to craft the underside of the building’s front porch.

Constructed as a sloped concrete shell, the architects selected a metal lattice to wrap around the porch of the building. Painted yellow, the covered area connects the glass curtainwall entrance and the exterior concrete shell. Daylighting filters through the porch and the natural breeze is enhanced by fans hanging from the yellow ceiling.

The porch helps shade the building, mitigating solar heat gain and reducing HVAC costs.

The design as made from Pac-Clad Precision Series aluminum box rib panels and a steel composite deck with aluminum tubes and plates.

The yellow theme continues inside, on the ceiling of the porch overhang and some of the interior structure’s facades, which are both clad in corrugated metal panels. The yellow metal lattice and corrugated metal panels combine to create what’s been described as a “playful and sculptural” design.

The aluminum gave the designers the ability to shape the undulating pattern that connects with the ground and is suspended above in different sections of the north elevation, creating a curtain-shaped entry from the concrete overhang to the porch area. The metal system also provides the durability and low maintenance features the complex was seeking.

Small metal tabs are connected to the poles of the lattice to form the letters “YSC”. Used as a branding element, the sign welcomes visitors and can be viewed from 110th Street, just north of Fort Lauderdale.

A concrete bench wraps around the lattice, providing athletes and visitors a place to escape the sun. in this outdoor living room. 

The shape of the board-formed concrete roof slopes down towards a central point. Here rainwater is directed by gutters where it is sent to an adjacent rain garden of glass, rocks and shrubs. The architects’ intent was making a “spectacle of rainfall” to allow visitors to observe the channeling of the rainfall.

Once the rain reaches the garden, whatever is not absorbed by the ground is filtered back into an aquifer. 

The YSC houses 10 acres of soccer, football and lacrosse fields built to accommodate large-scale sports events and tournaments with up to a 1000 people, while the new 4,100-square-foot Field House houses concessions, offices, restrooms and equipment storage.

Winner of a 2024 AIA California Design Award, the project “earned points” for its selection of materials, including metal.

“The choice of locally sourced materials not only supports the regional economy but also lowers transportation expenses. By aligning cost-saving measures with thoughtful design decisions, this field house demonstrates that economic efficiency need not come at the expense of quality or design integrity,” stated the jury.