The past year has been quite a transition for me as the mother of a teenage girl. Never the sporting type, she was always happy to play with friends, stay home and draw or tinker, and watch an unhealthy amount of horrible Disney based television. And I was fine with that. Well, most of it…

Then she discovered the sport of rowing. Accidentally, really. When we got home from Israel last summer, we told her that she needed to find something to do each day that was active and outside. I was not about to allow her to wake at 11 every morning, wanting me to take her for a hot bagel and proceed to chaperone field trips to the mall with her gaggle of friends.

Anyway, they were all on swim teams, lacrosse junkets and the like. Or they were summering elsewhere… So, somehow she came up with this notion of learning to row at a place called CRI. And we were thrilled. Even though, in order to get her to and from involved a 30 minute shuttle to the Charles River from home– on the Mass Pike in rush hour traffic both ways. I remember the first lesson I took her to, I stuck around to tour the facility.

What a gorgeous piece of architecture. Who wouldn’t want to be there each day? Louvered teak panelling, walls of glass that house the scull boats. Gravel paths with huge grasses planted in modernist style. I understand why this place is totally addictive. So, a year later, here I am doing that drive to the water each day. She is loving it still, and I never grow tired of that building, for all it has to offer, which is so much. Have a look:

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1. CRI 2. Anmahian Winton Architects 3. & 4. Anmahian Winton Architects via Arch Daily