Puna­hou School has long been known for the extra­or­di­nary char­ac­ter of the cam­pus land­scap­ing, open spaces and exist­ing build­ings. The new ath­let­ic facil­i­ties, close to aca­d­e­m­ic areas of the cam­pus and to adja­cent play­ing fields, were devel­oped in a sin­gle loca­tion for the School’s sub­stan­tial phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion pro­gram. Although por­tions of the com­plex were sig­nif­i­cant­ly recessed into the slop­ing site to min­i­mize their visu­al impact on the cam­pus, nat­ur­al light and ven­ti­la­tion were intro­duced into all major spaces below grade.

The west end of the project hous­es lock­er rooms, offices, handball/racquetball courts, a gym­nas­tic and wrestling gym­na­si­um, and a mul­ti-pur­pose class­room. The cen­ter sec­tion con­tains ful­ly equipped ath­let­ic ther­a­py facil­i­ties with the school’s health cen­ter above, eas­i­ly acces­si­ble from all points of the cam­pus in emer­gency sit­u­a­tions. The major cir­cu­la­tion ramps in this sec­tion not only link the dif­fer­ent build­ing lev­els but also pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant con­nec­tion between the upper and low­er areas of the campus.

The large mul­ti-pur­pose gym­na­si­um front­ed by the 50-meter swim­ming pool is the focus of the project’s east end, with the saw-tooth con­fig­u­ra­tion of the roof pro­vid­ing nat­ur­al illu­mi­na­tion and zones for the instal­la­tion of solar pan­els.  Activ­i­ties tak­ing place in this gym­na­si­um include bas­ket­ball, vol­ley­ball, bad­minton, wrestling, school assem­blies, and social func­tions, with elec­tron­i­cal­ly oper­at­ed bleach­ers seat­ing 1,800 people.