ABSTRACT
Thiswork is built on the subject of indigenous context to Recreation. This thesis sought to take full advantage of the cultural characteristics of Cross River State such as, its indigenous spatial organization, site planning, indigenous art, local building materials and construction techniques. The tourism industry worldwide is fast shifting from one of mass tourism to an eco-friendly one. Every architect has a responsibility to reflect and preserve vernacular ways of life, while still being able to design an experience filled tourist location. Recognizing indigenous context is one of the many ways of avoiding mass tourism. Utilising cultural characteristics such as spatial organization, local building materials and immaterial cultural characteristics is one of the best solutions. Problems of mass tourism such as hostility from indigenous populations and poor experience by tourists can be resolved by having a sense of place - The methodology employed the use of data from interviews with architects of existing recreational facilities, relevant authorities at parks and recreation centres and Case studies carried out using relevant information sourced from pertinent literature and the internet. In the course of the research, it was deduced that Cross River State in general has cultural characteristics that can be useful to enhancing recreational design. The Calabar municipal recreational centre is an attempt at reflecting cultural characteristics of Cross River State as well as creating a favourable tourists? destination. It concludes that it is indeed possible to achieve a recreational facility design that would bring visiting tourists in contact with the culture and way of life of the people of a place or region. Putting to use local building materials and construction techniques is just one of the ways that recreational facility design can be improved and there is room for further research.