VICTORIA PARK
Victoria Park Pavilion
Completed Fall 2015
Winner of The Lieutenant Governor's Award for Architecture, Citation, 2016
Featured in Award Magazine, Summer 2014
In 2011, RHAD won an international design competition hosted by the City of Edmonton. Of the three projects that were entered by RHAD, all three were short-listed and the Victoria Park submission won. The originally LEED Silver accredited project is being built in 2014-15. The Speed Skating Pavilion exemplifies the firm’s approach to integrated sustainable design. It is a multi-use building that extends lines beyond the building itself into the park and city as a whole. The project includes a “dry-land” training facility for the Edmonton Speed Skating Association, a multi-purpose room, a public observation room for speed skating, an exterior public observation platform for observing the North Saskatchewan River Valley, plus standard service facilities such as food canteen, washrooms, equipment maintenance workshop, and zamboni garage.
For ease of construction, all walls are designed as straight lines. The building bends slightly (5.2 degrees) at each grid line to create the curved form over the length of the pavilion. Elevation components explain the program within. Slats along the elevation define the open public amenity zones. The mostly solid corrugated metal wall defines the “back office” service zone. The north elevation is considerably more blank than the south elevation. Lengths of ribbon windows provide thin panoramic views of the park beyond while shielding users from the cold north side. The blank west elevation greets users abstractly upon arrival to the pavilion showcasing the pavilion’s sectional form while also unveiling a hint of the glulam structure to be found within.
The building form and location have been designed to integrate passive systems including solar, daylighting (allowing natural light in all rooms), and ventilation while avoiding existing tree lines, limiting the number of trees removed on site to three.
The geothermal system will be used in conjunction with water-to-water heat pumps to extract heat from the geothermal loop water (for heating), or dump heat to the water (for cooling). This geothermal loop will negate the requirement for over 600 meters of gas line that would otherwise have to be trenched through the golf course on Victoria Park. The total estimated annual building load with an electric system would be 208 MWH; this is reduced to 75 MWH with the geothermal system.
Otherwise discarded snow from the zamboni will be reused by way of a snow melt system (a component of the in-slab heating system) in the snow dump pit to melt the snow. The water will be pumped and stored in a “dirty” tank. The water will then be filtered and sent to a “clean” tank that would be used by a heat pump/electric boiler to heat the water to then refill the zamboni.
The building has a glulam primary and secondary structure which has six times less embodied energy than concrete or steel. Westdek glulam roof decking allows for long unencumbered spans between the glulam grid centres. This minimizes labour time, minimizes the structure required for the building, allows for an exposed roof structure, and allows for insulation to be applied to the exterior of the building, minimizing thermal bridging through the assembly. The secondary structure of laminated Douglas fir glulam panels act not only structurally but as the interior finish for most of the walls and ceilings throughout the pavilion. The mass timber used in this project allows the pavilion to act as a giant carbon store. On the exterior, recyclable corrugated metal siding is tough, long lasting, recyclable and vandal resistant.