College of DuPage Physical Education Building
Glen Ellyn, Illinois

Project Strategy

The College of DuPage is not just the second largest Community College in the country but also home of the locally renowned Chaparrals. This makes the Physical Education Building on campus a local and student empire of excellence both in the classroom and on the playing field. Athletes find an all-around quality program, complete with winning athletics and academics as the College promotes having one of the most successful community college athletic programs in the nation over the past 20 years. With this driving source of pride at the forefront of design inception and discussion, it should be no surprise that the final concept selected revolves around the heartbeat. The heartbeat serves as a symbol of the pulse of life, activity, energy, power and pride athletics provide on campus. A request that 40% of the flooring be a resilient rubber capable of withstanding the high impact of aggressive athletic activity and football cleats resulted in the use of Ecosource Rubber as the primary flooring solution for these areas. The design evolved triumphantly into a recurrence of single, bold strokes of color represented subtly in strategic flooring inlays fluctuating rhythmically throughout the building as school colors took precedence in key areas.

Unique Installation Challenge Strategy

One of the main challenges presented by this project was to find and provide a flooring solution that would be required to hold up to foot traffic from football and baseball cleats and also support other high impact, aerobic activities, while at the same time prove to be aesthetically pleasing and stimulating to both the users and visitors of this high end athletic facility. The flexibility in installation capabilities along with the variety of color saturation available with in their product line made Ecore the logical choice. In a collaboration between Edge Design and a qualified contractor like Vortex, a detailed flooring pattern was created utilizing vibrant colors to create inlays of various shapes to help break up the expansive space, resulting in an installation that exceeded the customer’s expectations both in form and function.