The gym was the first building erected in 1894 on land purchased by the YMCA Training School, now Springfield College, along Lake Massasoit. The inventor of basketball, James Naismith, once taught classes on the game and coached the school’s team here. While the school basks in this illustrious history, it needed to convey that its present human science programs are leading the field.

The master plan moved the admissions offices from the campus perimeter to its center, thereby introducing visitors to an iconic central quadrangle on their way in. While the building itself is redolent with history, its sandstone cut and shaped in an arts and crafts style, our renovations celebrated the best of the existing building fabric and selectively focused on the more notable details.