• Riverside Hotel, Indoor Pool and Fitness Building
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Riverside Hotel, Indoor Pool and Fitness Building

Enhancing the amenities of the Riverside Hotel is a new indoor pool and fitness building. The expansive, midcentury modern hotel built in the late 1960s has a prime location between the Boise River and Greenbelt path system, which run along the south side of the hotel, and the main thoroughfare of Garden City (Chinden Boulevard), which runs along the north side. A treasured hospitality venue for locals and visitors alike, the Riverside Hotel is more than just a hotel; it’s a destination place for people cruising the Greenbelt to enjoy the music, food, and beverage options.

The building design is sensitive to the scale of the hotel and its midcentury character, using simple planes and window openings as minimalist elements to achieve enclosure and massing. The building has the desired tall interior volume for the main pool room while keeping a small scale on the exterior volume so as not to interfere with daylight access for the adjacent hotel rooms. The structure is masonry on both the interior and exterior, while the roof is supported with large, laminated wood beams, and is left visible within the interior spaces. The design included tile and cedar wood for their durability in the wet indoor pool environment. 

The interior of the building balances privacy for pool visitors with access to daylight. The team strategically placed large openings aligned to the main resort features and high clerestory windows for well-distributed natural daylight within the space. 

Another element of the project — a small office building — is situated between the pool building and the existing hotel. The Riverside Hotel uses this space to enhance the entry with a welcoming touchpoint for visitors, reinforcing the resort-like placemaking. 

Native and ornamental plantings were utilized, for both their visual appeal and responsible water use, helping to reinforce the feeling of the Riverside Hotel as a part of the local landscape. A walkable garden with a sandstone labyrinth landscape feature and disappearing stone water fountain add to the interest of the space.

LOCATION
Garden City, ID

SERVICES
Architecture
Electrical Engineering
Interior Design
Lighting Design
Program Management
Mechanical Engineering
Structural Engineering

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