Dogwood Lawn Bowling

This project was a mandate of the City of Coquitlam Parks Department to provide outdoor amenities for Coquitlam’s aging population.
Project Type
Civic
Location
624 Poirier St., Coquitlam, BC
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Lawn bowling, or “bowls,” is a game played on a flat lawn or green at least 36.6 m2. In a match, the object is to roll bowls so that as many as possible are nearer to the “jack” (a smaller white bowl) than the nearest opposing wood. It is played in over 40 countries.

The program called for a standard size lawn bowling green of 120ft x 120ft with eight playing rinks, a horseshoe pitching area, a formal rose garden with raised planting beds designed according to Vancouver Rose Society standards, a garden and potting shed for the Rose Garden, a grounds equipment storage shed and a field house building with public washrooms and a locker change area for the lawn bowling players.

To tie the different and varied functions together into a unified composition, the lawn bowling green and the small field house building are used as the “centerpiece” in a symmetrical composition, flanked by the rose garden and horseshoe pitches. The washrooms, lawn bowling clubhouse, potting shed and grounds equipment storage were combined to create a larger building form.

Six entry gatehouses, a continuous boxwood hedge, traditional wood picket fences, and a green and white colour palette visually ties the large site together and help give a measure of dignity and elegance to a small field house building.