Client/Builder/Developer:   G & R Maple Lawn
Location:  Fulton, Howard County, Maryland
Market: Community Building and Fitness Center
Size:  5.01 Acres
Zoning: MXD-3
Density:  NA

The Maple Lawn Community Center is a 14,000 square foot facility, designed to be the central focal point and hub for the Maple Lawn residents.  It offers a host of indoor community rooms and workout spaces, a five acre park that surrounds the center and includes a formal garden, tennis courts, basketball courts, a playground, swimming pool, kids pool, picnic pavilion and a two-acre open field for active recreational use.  GLW’s role was to design a facility that incorporated this diverse recreational program (courts, pools, etc.) with onsite stormwater management. Further, to utilize landscaping and site furniture throughout the grounds to address user comfort, and to artfully blend the outdoor hardscapes with building structures.

GLW’s solution for the Community Center design was to create a graceful layout of recreational spaces, logical pedestrian circulation, integrated grading and stormwater management systems, and beautiful landscaping.  GLW’s circulation plan used a logical wayfinding design to bring people from parking areas to building to recreation areas.  Lawns, gardens, trees, pergolas, and benches helped create comfortable microclimates for people traversing from area to area. For example deciduous trees provide shade in the hot humid summer months, but also allow for light and warmth during the colder months.  Stormwater management facilities were planted appropriately to create a landscaped amenity while still allowing drainage to seep back into the aquifer. The impervious hardscape surfaces required careful, detailed site grading to direct drainage into numerous stormwater micro-bio facilities to keep these areas dry, safe, usable and clean.  Water-loving native plants were used to create visual amenities that blended the micro-bios into the overall landscape.  Ultimately the final design has a logical and visually attractive layout that allows comfortable, purposeful use of the recreation complex.