National Park Service:Park Structures and Facilities (Shelters and Recreation Buildings)

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Park Structures and Facilties

SHELTERS and RECREATION BUILDINGS

BEYOND DOUBT the most generally useful building in any park is a shelter, usually open but sometimes enclosed or enclosable, and then referred to as a recreation or community building, or a pavilion.

It is admittedly no trivial task to achieve a desirable and unforced variety in such buildings within the confines of a moderate cost. This is true of other park structures, but it is more apparent of shelters because they are so universally existent in park areas. It is the almost invariable presence of at least one shelter, and often of several shelters, in every park that tends to make us especially and painfully aware of a spiritless monotony of design and execution. Exertion of effort to bring character to a shelter, such as will differentiate it from a thousand and one others, is all too rare; attainment of the objective, without bizarre result, still more rare. The attempt is worth all the creative effort expended; the successful accomplishment, truly worthy of praise.

Because its purpose and use usually lead to its placement in the choicest of locations within the park, where it is natural to invite the park user to rest and contemplate a particularly beautiful prospect or setting, the shelter finds itself in the very center of a stage with a back-drop by the first Old Master. Its role is thus a difficult one, and is ill-played if rendered in the flippant slang or thin syncopated measures of the moment. Slapstick comedy technique is inappropriate; some dignity beyond passing fad or fashion is demanded of the shelter's stellar part.

The essentials of a shelter include first of all overhead protection and a place to sit and rest. In size, shelters range from the very small and minor, in a simple rendering, to the large and complicated, when many extra-functional dependencies are included in the ambitious structures of a large, much-used park.

Transition from the simplest to the specialized or more complex structure may be effected by the incorporation of one or more fireplaces, the partial or complete enclosing of the sides for protection from wind or weather, the provision of ovens or grills for picnic cooking and tables and seats for the picnic meal. The shelter of special purpose or the recreation building for year-round use results.

There are colloquial departures in shelters and their functions that make for some well-defined varieties.

One such is the so-called kitchen shelter developed in the Northwest, where presumably heavy rainfall is an abnormal threat to cooking picnic fare in the open. The type evolved is a kind of combined kitchen and picnic shelter, the sides widely open except against the prevailing winds. Our countrymen of this region must fairly radiate sweetness and light, for here almost invariably the facilities for cooking are double, triple or quadruple ovens ranged in close proximity about one chimney. The shelters bear no noticeable scars of intergroup ruction and seem almost to refute the widely held conviction that close contact of picnicking groups is provocative of trouble. Perhaps from this peaceable region will spread forth the millennium when the lion and the lamb universally can picnic on the same half-acre and like it.

Typical of the Southwest is the ramada, functioning in protection of the picnicker from the heat and brilliance of the desert sun. Its name is from the Spanish, its style generally derived from the Pueblo. It is built with rock or adobe walls or piers, its practically flat roof carried on round poles, or vigas. The roofs are usually covered with a kind of thatch allowed to hang down over the edges as a fringed protective valance of bewhiskered appearance. The ramada of the desert country is often equipped with an integral open fireplace and chimney. Sometimes there is provided instead an outdoor fireplace nearby for the preparation of food. The ramada often accommodates more than one picnic group.

There are logical combinations of the shelter with other park structural needs which bring welcome diversification to its form and appearance. Custodian's or concessionaire's quarters, concession space, public comfort stations, storage space, and other facilities have been successfully incorporated with shelters and produced satisfying variations which avoid implication either of the commonplace on the one hand or the fantastic on the other. There are sufficient legitimate combinations and cross combinations of functions, materials, forms, and other ingredients to make possible an almost infinite number of agreeably different shelters, if served up without economy of skill and effort in the contriving, and seasoned with a palatable dash of individuality.

The shelter floor may be simply a gravel or earth fill, or may be brick or stone laid on a sand fill. A wood floor for a shelter has little to recommend it. Concrete pavement with one of several surface materials may be used. The variety of soil and frost conditions over the entire country precludes the making of a recommendation in the choice of material. Available funds likewise will affect its selection. Whatever material a thorough consideration of circumstances may designate for use, it is rather to be urged that it be intelligently employed with due thought for its fitness and durability. So many pavements of open shelters have failed to survive the local temperature range and frost action with such disheartening results, that it is not unfair to assert that there has been too prevalent ignorance or naive disregard of unchangeable material facts. Were it not for the introductory promise to avoid the "primer" approach within these discussions, there would be at this point a yielding to temptation to point out that masonry expands under heat and contracts with cold, and that proper expansion joints are a specific, that foundation walls are unreliable unless carried below the local frost level, and that bounding retaining walls do not long retain if moisture can collect underground above the frost line. A promise being what it is, a recall of these elementary facts must go herein unrecorded and neglected.

Plate L-1 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-2 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-3 (click on image for a PDF version)

Trailside Shelter, Bismarck Metropolitan Parks, North Dakota

The Adirondacks shelter moving westward undergoes changes. In this example the points of difference are the informality of axe-cut log ends and an added rakishness of contours. The fireplace continues in its traditional location, facing the open front of the shelter.

Bismarck Metropolitan Parks, North Dakota

Trailside Shelter, Scenic State Park, Minnesota

Structural forthrightness and precedent are sacrificed for novelty in the omission of wing walls from the front corners of this variant. Probably structurally safe through the use of very long spikes, there exists a feeling of insecurity in this abandonment of the time-honored "log cabin" corner. The benches around the three walls are a departure from type.

Scenic State Park, Minnesota

Trailside Shelter, Cook County Forest Preserve, Illinois

The Adirondacks shelter, in this example, turns to a rather meticulous stonework that is perhaps at home in a metropolitan area, but hardly as informal as we might wish for in a wilderness setting. The fireplace that was isolated and facing the open front in the prototype, is here incorporated with the shelter itself, and thereby precedent is somewhat obscured.

Cook County Forest Preserve, Illinois

Plate L-4 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-5 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-6 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-7 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-8 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-9 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-10 (click on image for a PDF version)

Picnic Shelter, Phoenix South Mountain Park, Arizona

This airy banquet hail in a desert setting repudiates all legendary perils of the Western desert. The wounded bandit dragging himself to the water hole, might well have gathered strength in the shade of a luxurious shelter such as this. The table is of majestic proportions, the stone piers of interesting workmanship and the unbarbered roof covering probably just an old Spanish custom.

Plate L-11 (click on image for a PDF version)

Phoenix South Mountain Park, Arizona

Typical Iowa Shelters

The surrounding illustrations serve to show that minor departures from the typical shelter detailed on the opposite page, even though within narrow limits, tend to result in distinct individuality. All bear the stamp of Iowa, a healthy indication that here is a region developing a structural expression of its own. None bears the rubber stamp of slavish duplication. The several points of minor variation are worthy of careful attention. The style is agreeable and vigorous and the plan one that is appropriate and useful in many settings.

Plate L-12 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-13 (click on image for a PDF version)

Shelter, Forest City State Park, Iowa

Shelter, interior view, Forest City State Park, Iowa

Shelter, Backbone State Park, Iowa

Shelter, Springbrook State Park, Iowa

Shelter, interior view, Springbrook State Park, Iowa

Picnic Shelters

Directly above is pictured the shelter at Staunton River State Park detailed on the opposite page. The other illustrations show different renderings of this basic and popular type in a variety of materials including board and batten, vertical logs, rough siding, and stone, in the order named. These serve to demonstrate the wide range for individuality of exterior treatment possible over an almost identical floor plan.

Plate L-14 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-15 (click on image for a PDF version)

Staunton River State Park, Virginia

Douthat State Park, Virginia

Wheeler Dam Reservation, Tennessee Valley Authority

Clarence Fahnstock State Park, New York

Plate L-16 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-17 (click on image for a PDF version)

Shelter, Darling State Forest Park, Vermont

Opposite are shown the plan and detail drawings of this shelter. The general arrangement with fireplace at one end, and this end enclosed for one-third the length of the structure, is somewhat regional in its popularity. It is typical of New York and the New England States.

Darling State Forest Park, Vermont

Kisil Point Shelter, Letchworth State Park, New York

Kinship of this example with the one above is quite apparent. Points of difference are minor. This shelter and the one below employ rough slabs applied horizontally to give semblance of the true log structure. The chimney with continuous batter from grade to cap seems also to be a regional characteristic.

Kisil Point Shelter, Letchworth State Park, New York

Tea Table Rock Shelter, Letchworth State Park, New York

This third rendering of the group displays an open truss in the gable end, a feature usually no more successful than here. There is a look of frailty about most trusses fabricated of timbers in the round that is all but unavoidable. This one seems distressingly light.

Tea Table Rock Shelter, Letchworth State Park, New York

Plate L-18 (click on image for a PDF version)

Community Kitchen, Rainbow Falls State Park, Washington

A facility significant of the climate of the Northwest where the mortality rate of picnics in the open relates directly to heavy rainfall. Here are exemplified massiveness of log construction and shakes scaled to the abundance of native cedar, but there is an uncompromising sharpness to the rafter and purlin ends that makes one wish that axe and draw-knife, rather than a saw, had been employed. The facilitating equipment consists of sink, double stove and four table and bench combinations, the latter in an intimate proximity that only a downpour would render inviting.

Plate L-19 (click on image for a PDF version)

Community Kitchen, Rainbow Falls State Park, Washington

Plate L-20 (click on image for a PDF version)

Shelter Kitchen, McCormick's Creek State Park, Indiana

This type of structure, so frequent in the Northwest, moves eastward to bid for popularity in the Hoosier State. The chimney serves six picnic ovens, and is located at the center of the sheltering roof. The shake roof has agreeable scale.

Plate L-21 (click on image for a PDF version)

McCormick's Creek State Park, Indiana

Picnic Shelter, Voorhees State Park, New Jersey

The supporting posts and brackets of this shelter seem perfectly scaled to the mass, and recall something of the sturdy and workmanlike joinery of the early American barn, a fitting source of precedent and inspiration for a building in our natural parks. The horizontality produced by the three-member railing offsets the considerable pitch of a roof that otherwise might cause the structure to appear too high. The simple gable treatment and the broad approach steps are important contributions to the satisfying effect here created.

Plate L-22 (click on image for a PDF version)

Voorhees State Park, New Jersey

Shelter, Whitewater State Park, Minnesota

This shelter building has features that differentiate it from the cast-in-one-mould-and-too-often-repeated shelter types. The continuation of the floor to give a stone paved walkway around the building is a novelty that would seem to offer the advantage of projecting the shelter's use into the immediate environs. The style of the roof shingling gives interest. The effect of the masonry is a happy mean between refinement and rusticity.

Plate L-23 (click on image for a PDF version)

Whitewater State Park, Minnesota

Large Shelter, Clifty Falls State Park, Indiana

Low, informal, picturesque, this shelter succeeds in retaining the feeling of the typical primitive log cabin of southern Indiana that must have inspired it. The combination of textures, the denticulation of roof comb by the local practice of alternating the lap of the topping-off shingle courses, the squared logs and robust chimneys, are important details. This is Exhibit A in disproof of any contention that a simple structure of character cannot be expanded without sacrifice of its savor.

Plate L-24 (click on image for a PDF version)

Clifty Falls State Park, Indiana

Small Shelter, Clifty Falls State Park, Indiana

A picturesque shelter so much in the spirit of early Indiana that doubt is aroused as to whether it has been converted from an old log cabin, reconstructed from the remnants of one, or is new construction cleverly "antiqued." The squared logs, the wide chinking and rude shake roof are characteristic of the locality.

Plate L-25 (click on image for a PDF version)

Clifty Falls State Park, Indiana

Shelter, Buffalo Rock State Park, Illinois

This combination building assuredly houses much in little—sizable toilet rooms, concession stand with kitchen, and shelter with fireplace. Of considerable merit are the log portion with interestingly ragged corner joining and the "freehand drawn" character of the roof and shingling. Not quite in key with the pleasing informality of these materials is the stone work. This might have been less painstakingly exact to great gain in the park-like character of the ensemble. The plan suggests probable insufficient light and ventilation for the toilet rooms.

Plate L-26 (click on image for a PDF version)

Buffalo Rock State Park, Illinois

Shelter, Pere Marquette State Park, Illinois

This mid-western shelter steps outside the set patterns and achieves a naive individuality. The paved semi-courtyard and the trail that passes through the structure are novel features. There is an uncouthness of character that compels attention, if it does not win unanimous admiration.

Plate L-27 (click on image for a PDF version)

Pere Marquette State Park, Illinois

Shelter, Mohawk Park, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Evidencing brilliant indifference to the hackneyed in shelter plans, and a handling of materials free of hampering dictates of tradition, here is a building that gives promise of an eventual American park architecture. This accomplishment owes much to the irregularity of the shingle courses, the curiously blunted beavering of the rafter ends and the carefully careless ragged batter of the stone walls from grade to sill of openings.

Plate L-28 (click on image for a PDF version)

Mohawk Park, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Shelter, Gitchie Manitou State Park, Iowa

Few buildings among the subjects herein illustrated are so well keyed to their immediate surroundings as this stone picnic shelter. There is a rapprochement between the crude stone masonry and rock outcroppings that evidences an understanding of the claims of environment.

Plate L-29 (click on image for a PDF version)

Gitchie Manitou State Park, Iowa

Shelter, Custer State Park, South Dakota

From its well-blended base line and rude stone pavement to ridgepole of its vigorous roof, this sturdy shelter is highly charged with admirable park character. Equally impressive is the interior treatment, in which the piers are contrived to provide stone seats that appear logically integral with the building itself.

Plate L-30 (click on image for a PDF version)

Custer State Park, South Dakota

Shelter, Lake Guernsey State Park, Wyoming

From rude outcropping at its base to finished termination of the chimney is visual presentation of successive stages of masonry evolution. Plant growth should ultimately complete the blending to site so skillfully started by the rock work. The contrast between exterior and interior masonry surface is startling.

Plate L-31 (click on image for a PDF version)

Lake Guernsey State Park, Wyoming

Shelter, Boyle State Park, Arkansas

Vigorous in design and sympathetically executed, this shelter ranks near the top by current standards for park architecture. The broad, unbroken roof surface, vitalized by the texture of thick shakes doubled every fourth course, and the informality of masonry and log work, could hardly be improved on. The outdoor fireplace, with broad stone-paved terrace for its hearth, is a feature of interest. The regular denticulation terminating the vertical boards in the gables forcefully accents the otherwise freehand lines of the building.

Plate L-32 (click on image for a PDF version)

Plate L-33 (click on image for a PDF version)

Boyle State Park, Arkansas

Recreation Building, "Green Mountain Lodge," Boulder Mountain Park, Colorado

In close harmony with the rock-strewn site, this enclosed shelter building seems guiltless of false note. Even the formlessness of the rocks employed to top off the chimney can claim a measure of exemption from criticism on the plea of relationship to the indigenous rocks. The building is used as a rallying point for Boy Scouts and other organizations visiting the park as groups. There is great practical advantage in a building of this general type in a park. Its many windows provide good ventilation in summer, yet when these are closed and both fireplaces are lighted, use in the most severe weather is possible.

Plate L-34 (click on image for a PDF version)

"Green Mountain Lodge," Boulder Mountain Park, Colorado

Shelter Pavilion, Scenic State Park, Minnesota

In this example Minnesota justifies her advantage of superior native timber resources by the fine character of the log construction. We are almost blinded to the lesser merit of the chimney masonry, which, for all its sturdy proportions, favors the "peanut brittle" technique. No one region seems to have been blest beyond its fair share of natural resources of the first flight. An imagined ideal park structure might call for a masonry chimney from one of several localities, but it would assuredly specify "logs and log construction by Minnesota."

Plate L-35 (click on image for a PDF version)

Scenic State Park, Minnesota

Community Building, Longmire, Mt. Rainier National Park

A park structure of importance that after pointing the way for many later buildings, has been far outrun in achievement of subtleties of design and execution making for true park structural character. The thinness of the roof shingles and the masonry of the chimneys are unfortunate. Comparison of the almost mechanical stiffness of the rafter ends with the handcrafted quality of the "whittled" rafter ends of other subjects more recently built, will indicate one such advance in structural technique.

Plate L-36 (click on image for a PDF version)

Longmire, Mt. Rainier National Park

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park_structures_facilities/secl.htm
Last Updated: 5-Dec-2011