[Richmond] Olympic Oval | Completed

[mr.x]

RICHMOND OLYMPIC OVAL - world's largest oval

Location: Richmond (suburb south of Vancouver)
Distance from Vancouver Olympic Village: 15 km
Venue Capacity: 8,000 seats
Elevation: Sea level
Cost: CAN$170 million


Venue Description
The Richmond Oval site is located on the banks of the Fraser River, 25 minutes south of the Olympic Village in downtown Vancouver. The site, in the northwest corner of Richmond, is across the river from Vancouver International Airport and near the Richmond city centre.

Construction Update
The Richmond Oval will be an outstanding theatre for sport with a new 400-metre track housed in a 33,750-square-metre facility. Key design elements include a state-of-the-art ice plant with superior air quality and climate controls. Facilities and systems will include offices, timing and athlete monitoring equipment, and fitness and strength training areas. Construction began in September 2005 with a completion date of Fall 2008.

Post-Games Use
After the Games, the oval will become an international centre of excellence for sports and wellness. The oval’s flexible design will allow it to be used for a variety of sport and community functions. The oval will be the centrepiece of a major new urban waterfront neighbourhood featuring a mix of residential, commercial and public amenity development.




Olympic mode



Post-Games mode



Lobby exterior



Exterior

[mr.x]

Site of the oval in Richmond - October 2006



December 2005



January 2006



February 2006



March 2006



April 2006



May 2006



June 2006



June 2006-2



July 2006



July 2006-2



July 2006-3



August 2006



August 2006-2



August 2006-3



September 2006



September 2006-2



September 2006-3




Site of the oval - October 2006





November 2006




December 2006




January 2007






June 2007

[mr.x]

June 2007 - taken by Bils













July 2007















Most recent picture - September 2007

[SFUVancouver]

Very nice job!

I had no idea it was so far along.

[excel]

The scale of this project is just amazing, love it. Thanks for the construction timeline slideshow.

[David]

holy crap, i had absolutely no idea how far along it was.
it looks lovely!

[giallo]

The detailing inside the columns is a nice touch. Quality!

[Canadian Mind]

What is the detailing for, and who is it by?

Also, with regards to the roof, what part is wood? so far I've thought the beams were the wood, but they look gray as concrete. is it the roof surface instead that is wood, or were the beams sun-bleached and are soon to be stained?

[raggedy13]

^I think they might just be wrapped in some sort of protective film. If you look at this pic, it looks like you can see wrinkles along the beams that would suggest some sort of wrap.

[officedweller]

The beams are steel trusses, as seen in this pic by Bils posted above. They are wrapped in wood siding (the pine beetle wood, I think). The plastic must be to protect the wood.

[bils]

anyone know what the timeline for the adjacent oval lands (ASPAC) is? .... in terms of how much will be completed in time for the olympics? they'd better get the hell on it if they plan on having something done for 2010.

there is a rezoning application sign up in front of the warehouse at the NW corner of hollybridge & elmbridge. looks like an onni condo development. the site connects right up to the oval.

[bils]

i was out taking pictures of the thousands upon thousands of snow geese in richmond..... quite a sight. anyways, here's the oval from literally a few miles away. it's making quite an impressive mark on the richmond landscape.



my photo

[mr.x]

^ nice shot, it will be a great facility.

[bils]

site prep/loading has begun on the western-most lots of the oval lands..... presumably the first signs of the aspac developments!

[mr.x]

View from inside.

[SpongeG]

i passed by the other other eve - was gonna take a pic but never did

it looks quite cool in the dusk hours

[bils]

did a little photo tour of richmond this afternoon. i posted the other pix in the appropriate threads. anyways, here's the oval ones:
--------
the first adjacent site i've noticed go to a development application




site loading on the west side of the oval lands. part of the aspac development perhaps?


same site loading

[raggedy13]

Thanks for the pics, bils! They're great.

All that wood is looking pretty sweet...

[mr.x]

thanks for the pics! looks amazing already.

[officedweller]

Great pics.
Those wooden cross members are written up in a Vancouver Magazine article this month (below). Apparently they are made from small 2x4s of pine beetle lumber all nailed together.

Golden Arches

One of the lasting legacies of the 2010 Games is likely to be the stunning roof that surmounts the Richmond Oval

By Trevor Boddy


Image credit: Martin Tessler

Fine engineering—like fine art or fine wine—is about elegance, balance, and efficiency. Consider the roof at the Richmond Oval: the most original, innovative, and pleasing structure designed for the upcoming Winter Games. Deep arches leap over the ice surface where latex-slicked speed-skaters will race round and round. Each arch is something of a V-shaped blade itself, its ice-side terminating in an acute steel angle. It’s as if some behemoth Hans Brinker is about to break through the ribbed ceiling.

Set into these vaulting blades are four-foot-deep sections of composite wooden panels. These arched panels were the largest that could be shipped on flat-bed trucks from the Deas Island factory of StructureCraft Inc. to the site on River Road. The steel blade arches went up first, beginning this summer; then arched panels were set on either side to complete the roof. Each panel’s V-rib is stuffed with acoustics-improving mineral wool; fire-suppression pipes and nozzles are also threaded through the ribs. Design engineer Paul Fast has struck an artful balance here, mixing the strength (but cost) of steel with the malleability and local sheen (plus bang for buck) of the B.C.-made beams.

Long before our standard markets for dimension lumber collapsed in the U.S. housing meltdown, Fast’s partner, engineer Gerry Epp, was designing value-added uses for B.C.’s forest harvests (as in the timber columns and plywood peeler core-space frames his firm devised for Bing Thom’s Surrey Central City). As Epp was figuring out the roof, the scale of mountain pine beetle kill was becoming apparent. With blue-stained pine piling up at B.C. sawmills (beetle discolouration doesn’t affect structural properties, but is thought to be a marketing liability, and the size of the dead pines means that only small-dimension lumber can be cut from them), Fast + Epp found a way to span one of the largest clear-span roofs in the province almost entirely with gang-nailed two-by-fours. Total cost: about $16 million.

Most of the world’s finest engineers built their reputations with steel or concrete structures. Fast + Epp may soon join their ranks by showing how a renewable resource can accomplish everything that high-tech structures can, and more.