AmericasCalgary · Seattle · Toronto · Vancouver

AsiaBeijing · DelhiHo Chi Minh CityHong Kong · Shanghai Singapore

Middle EastDubai · Jeddah

bharchitects.com

High Performance DesignB+H and the Toronto 2015 Games

Hosting swimming, diving, fencing, modern pentathalon, sitting volleyball

and roller sports events during the Pan Am / Parapan Am Games, the

$205-million Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC) is the largest single

investment in Canadian amateur sport history. Its aquatics centre is one of

the first in the country to contain two 50-m pools (a competition pool and

an adjustable-depth training pool), and a diving tank. The field house boasts

a gymnasium large enough to accommodate four basketball courts or six

volleyball courts; a fitness area; a running track; and a sports medicine clinic.

Located on the north edge of the University of Toronto’s east-end

Scarborough campus (UTSC), on land jointly owned by the university and the

City of Toronto, the facility will serve in legacy mode as an athletic centre for

both university and community use. It is also the new home of the Canadian

Sport Institute Ontario (CSIO), which is part of Canada’s network of institutes

providing state-of-the-art science and sport performance services to the

nation’s top-flight athletes.

The complex occupies a site classified as a brownfield due to large amount

of contaminated soil that would have to be removed prior to construction.

The exemplar design that B+H Architects developed proposed a means of

turning this liability into an asset: instead of replacing the contaminated

soil with a comparable amount of clean fill, B+H advocated sinking a large

portion of the building into the excavation, which minimized the amount

of infilling required. We also advocated placing the main public entrance

and the athletes’ entrance on opposite sides of the building, in order to

more easily achieve separate flows for athletes and spectators – a security

requirement for all Toronto 2015 sports venues. The winning Design-Build-

Finance consortium incorporated both of these strategies into their design,

along with our proposed layout for most of the facility’s main components.

In the spring of 2015, this building became the first on the UTSC campus to

earn LEED® Gold certification. Its most noteworthy sustainable features

include a geothermal system that provides 4o per cent of the facility’s

heating and 99 per cent of its cooling, and a green roof covering 30 per cent

of the roof area.

THE CHALLENGE:

‘Right-sizing’ the venue for Games and Legacy modes

B+H’S STRATEGIC RESPONSE:

The TPASC requires a total of 8,500 spectator seats in games mode

and 5,000 seats in legacy mode – and that’s a big difference. Building

an overly large facility to accommodate the 3,500 (rented) seats

used only for the Toronto 2015 Games was not a sustainable option.

Instead, B+H proposed installing a temporary wall in the aquatics

centre, to be removed after the Games and replaced by a permanent

wall that would enclose a much smaller area. The bid-winning

consortium adopted this approach.

size: 272,500 ft² | 25,320 m² spectator seating, games mode: 5,000 (competition pool) and 3,500 (field house) spectator seating, legacy mode: 3,500 (competition pool) and 1,500 (field house) games name: CIBC Pan Am / Parapan Am Aquatics Centre and Field House b+h architects’ role: Master Planning and PDC (Planning, Design and Compliance) Prime Consultant architect of record: NORR

Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre

20 High Performance Design

Courtesy of UTSC; Photo Credit: Ken Jones

Courtesy of Infrastructure Ontario

Courtesy of UTSC; Photo Credit: Ken Jones Courtesy of UTSC; Photo Credit: Ken Jones

High Performance Design 21