Located on the Spuyten Duyvil Creek tidal estuary in Upper Manhattan, the Philip & Cheryl Milstein Family Tennis Center is the heart of the Baker Athletics Complex. The facility features a unique design that allows flood water to flow through the building while protecting mechanical systems and other operations. The design adds resilience to current and future climate risks, including coastal and tidal flooding, heavy rainfall, extreme heat, high winds and severe winter weather. Incorporating these considerations was part of a risk-informed, future-focused approach that reaches beyond New York City codes.
Building the facility high enough off the ground to avoid a 500-year flood would have been prohibitively expensive, so our resilience team developed a series of vents that open to allow water to flow in and out of the first floor during a storm. Finishes on the first floor were selected for their resistance water damage, so when stormwater subsides, the courts can be cleaned and used immediately.
We provided multi-hazard climate risk assessment, resilience consulting and design, and structural engineering services to Perkins&Will for the two-story building. The facility, which contains six indoor courts and six outdoor rooftop courts, also provides well as fitness, meeting and recreation space for alumni, affiliated hospital staff, faculty, students and their families.