HRM Canada Games Center

Project Description

This 175,000 square foot athletic facility consists of an aquatic centre, field house, fitness centre, associated support spaces, and a variety of community gathering areas. The function of the building dictates large un-interrupted spans for the two primary programmatic elements – the field house and the pool. From the beginning, steel was identified as the only logical solution to achieve these spans. Due to the project designation as the host building of the 2011Canada Games, the design and construction schedule was compressed, resulting in a construction managed, sequentially tendered delivery process. Steel was identified early on as a material that could be adapted to an accelerated fabrication and erection process

The larger of the two spans, the field house, consists of a 125 foot long arched truss that varies in depth from 10feet at the ends to16 feet at mid-span. Athletic programming on the court surface below dictated a 36ft clear height to the underside of the truss. Spaced at just over 30 feet on centre, the transverse arched trusses bear on a pair of longitudinal trusses running the entire 300 foot length of the field house. Spanning either two or three bays, these longitudinal trusses allow an un-interrupted span for the running track at the mezzanine level. Similar to the field house the pool employs a slightly smaller 104 foot long flat truss.

The attention to detail of the steel members and connections is particularly important as both areas use indirect up-lighting’ to illuminate the spaces below, putting the steel structure on display As the project is targeting LEED silver the steel structure plays a significant role in achieving the necessary recycled content credits.