NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Park and Recreation Structures

TO TRY TO DESCRIBE what we term community buildings in parks by statements of what they are not is a temptation not to be withstood. It is the easiest way, and by and large perhaps as clarifying as a more affirmative effort, inasmuch as the purposes of the community building seem to be more obscure than those of most other structures having place in parks.

To begin with, this building differs structurally from the open shelter (an essential item of rather similar function) in that it is entirely enclosed. It differs functionally from the concession or refectory building (often a similar item structurally) in that it is seldom identified with the selling or serving of food. Perhaps it need not be so negatively described; it can be more positively defined, after all, as a marriage of something of the function of the shelter and something of the physical aspect of the refectory building.

The community building is almost always located in an intensive use area. It is normally a supplementing facility of an overnight group such as a public campground or a cabin colony. Probably its primary use is as a clubroom or recreation room where tent and trailer campers or cabin occupants can become acquainted and participate in games, music, dancing, and other social diversions. Particularly is this need for it acute when overnight cabins have been pared down in size to a point where they offer only sleeping space and no room at all for indoor activities in bad weather.

However, its use can be more than social and recreational; it can have educational and cultural purpose. Where a park museum is lacking, it often develops that the community building acquires as a side line the offhand display of minor collections of biologic and geologic material and relics or curios of local interest. Sometimes the community building will serve as an indoor "in-case-of-rain" substitute for the campfire circle or amphitheater. The activities of community buildings of considerable size may even embrace platform entertainment.

These varied combinations of purposes encountered in community buildings should result, if structure follows function, in a related variety of structural expressions. Such does not obtain, however, perhaps largely because the combination of functions ultimately housed can so seldom be forecast. And so the community building inclines to be something of a catch-all, functioning for some buildings not yet supplied and for existing others that have proved to be inadequate or overtaxed in use.

If it is to serve advantageously in the many emergenices that can overtake it, the community building must have many windows to supply ample ventilation when it is crowded in warm weather and to light effectively, without need for artificial illumination in daytime, if possible, any collections casually displayed. It should have a fairly high ceiling, since it may have to accommodate large gatherings comfortably in weather when the windows cannot be widely opened. It is no psychologically satisfying substitute for the campfire circle if it is not furnished with at least one large fireplace. Toilet facilities, if not conveniently near in other structures, should be provided in the community building.

If platform entertainment can be foreseen among its ultimate activities, the community building will probably be equipped with something that is more than speaker's platform, yet less than stage. Sometimes this feature is movable. Promoted entertainment will embrace lectures and talks, especially if there is in the vicinity a campfire circle for which the community building will be called on to substitute in bad weather. Since slides and motion pictures are frequently the accompaniment of these outdoor talks and lectures, the community building wisely planned will have, or allow for the future installation of, a screen and a projection booth. In no event should construction of the booth in any detail fall short of fireproofing practices generally recommended for the housing of this equipment item because, along with the usual hazards of film projection and a crowded auditorium, there is likely to be the hazard of a building largely of wood construction.

While platform entertainment in the community building will probably seldom if ever embrace dramatics, it is conceivable that something on the scale of an amateur vaudeville show or a "stunt night", arranged with camper talent, will often threaten. Wherefore the size of the platform might well anticipate the space needs of a song-and-dance act, a quartette, and a dramatic reader with a capacity for sweeping gestures.

It is not intended in the foregoing to impute to the average community building the characteristics of an auditorium. It should stop with being an all-purpose assembly room, nicely scaled to the number of persons likely to make normal use of it in its several uses. Because it may sometimes be overcrowded, there should be no shortage of exit doors, strategically located. If dancing is anticipated as one of its recreational probabilities, a wood floor of good grade is needed.

In common with other park buildings where visitors congregate, community buildings become more useful, and in the summer season actually accommodate more people, if they are provided with wide, roomy porches. Certainly a sheltering entrance porch is almost a necessity.

Since it is an enclosed structure, extra-seasonal use can be made of the community building by appropriating it for week end and other short-term winter camping. Site conditions and climate will sometimes conspire to make it logical to use the building as a shelter house for winter sports participants and onlookers. If this seems probable when the building is being planned, there is justification for providing some means of heating it in winter temperatures, as well as for including a ramp approach, toilet and shower facilities, waxing room, and other refinements which can extend its usefulness.

The well-groomed little structure of the tailpiece illustration is not officially designated a community building and may not even be so utilized. But its plan elements follow so closely those which constitute a serviceable community building in a small park that it is chosen to classify it here as such. It houses a small public room, a tiny office, and toilet rooms for men and women. At one end of the public room are a counter and enclosure that could function as a checkroom, especially if winter sports were an activity, and even as a minor food concession. Besides, it is representative of an appropriate sophisticated park architecture too rarely encountered, compared with which fact, mere accuracy in classification seems unimportant.

Poundridge County Reservation, New York

• Plate III D—1 — Plate III D—6