Rosewood Beach

Firm: Woodhouse Tinucci Architects

Location: Highland Park, Illinois

Client: Park District of Highland Park

Contractor: W B Olson

Consultants: WMA Consulting Engineers, Enspect Engineers, Terra Engineering, Lux Populi, US Army Corps of Engineers

Photos: Bill Timmerman, Timmerman Photography

Rosewood Beach is beloved to Highland Park; it is the only public beach in the area. It needed an environmental education center (also used for parties and summer camps), snack bar, lifeguard station, restrooms and improved access from the neighborhood park atop the bluff. As a result, Woodhouse Tinucci produced a quintessential beach experience, including a 1,500-foot boardwalk that meanders and connects access points across the beach. Pavilions are long, low, thin and topped with boardwalk planking so that views down the beach and from the park above are preserved. Jurors noted how well the boardwalk design and material integration served the site. “The concept of one band across the beach … it become a part of the landscape,” one juror said. “It’s a boardwalk about the environment — not retail!”