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
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Post-Games mode
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Lobby exterior
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Exterior
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Site of the oval in Richmond - October 2006
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December 2005
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January 2006
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February 2006
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March 2006
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April 2006
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May 2006
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June 2006
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June 2006-2
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July 2006
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July 2006-2
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July 2006-3
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August 2006
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August 2006-2
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August 2006-3
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September 2006
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September 2006-2
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September 2006-3
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Site of the oval - October 2006
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November 2006
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December 2006
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January 2007
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June 2007
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June 2007 - taken by Bils

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July 2007
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Most recent picture - September 2007
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big thanks to bils for taking these updates:


the first adjacent site i've noticed go to a development application
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site loading on the west side of the oval lands. part of the aspac development perhaps?
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same site loading
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Sudden Thought: if Whitecaps can't get their stadium in downtown, maybe they should negotiate with Richmond for their new home =P

Edit: Stupid me... that will be indoor soccer then =( and seats not enough?

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

http://www.vanmag.com/articles/07dec/Goldenarches.jpg
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.

Wow it's amazing. I really like the roof, which I think looks sort of Asian. Totally wicked.

timber is the new steel. its uses are endless and I hope more Olympic venues in future make use of timber. Some great winter olympic venues in the past used timber to create amazing venues.

posted by delirium

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from www.flickr.com

Wow, amazed photos. :cheers:

Richmond seeking to spend $16m more on skating oval
New money would be spent before the 2010 Winter Games to convert interior spaces into areas for 'sports and wellness services'

Kent Spencer, The Province
Published: Friday, December 07, 2007

Richmond's finance committee wants $16 million to be spent on the Olympic Oval next year, where costs have already risen to $178 million.

"This is not a cost overrun," city spokesman Ted Townsend said yesterday. "It is a change in the scope of the project."

Townsend said the new money would be spent before the 2010 Winter Games to convert interior spaces into areas for "sports and wellness services."

He said the new plan calls for a "greatly enhanced community use," which would provide a "broader program" than was previously contemplated.

If council approves the recommendation, the funds would come from $141-million worth of city property that has been sold near the oval.

Staff have recommended a 3.96-per-cent property tax increase in 2008, but Townsend said that hike is not oval-related. He said property taxes will not be raised to pay for the oval.

The speed-skating venue was originally budgeted at $155 million, with $63 million from senior governments.

The cost was raised to $178 million to accommodate a $23-million parking garage needed to deal with shifting river sands.

Critics said the latest $16 million would bring total cost overruns to $39 million.

With the rounded wooden roof taking shape on the complex in the 6000-block River Road, it will be the largest building erected for the Games.

Maureen Bader of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said Richmond's announcement was evidence of spiralling costs.

"The city has too much money. Richmond politicians are looking for new ways to spend money, rather than how to lower property taxes. Why not give all that money from the land sale back to the taxpayers? It belongs to them," she said.

NDP MLA Harry Bains (Surrey-Newton) said Richmond's budget has been "full of surprises."

"I wonder how many more surprises are out there," he said. "Enough is enough. Taxpayers deserve better."

Some of the conversion would occur before the Games because Olympic space requirements have been smaller than anticipated.

"We have the funds available to support this now," said Townsend. "It is more efficient to do improvements during the construction phase. We would save money doing them in 2008 dollars."

The building's cavernous interior would be rearranged into three NHL-sized rectangular sections.

The spaces would be designated for ice, court and turf. There would be a rink, hardwood floors, fitness centre and indoor track among the 34,000 square metres. The 400-m speed-skating oval would remain.

The latest spending plan was contained in the finance committee's $163-million capital budget, which was four times as big as normal.

A total of $1.7 million has also been set aside for oval art in the surrounding precinct.

Coun. Harold Steves said he knew the bill would be "well over $10 million."

"It's a useless building if we don't do it," he said. "This has been planned right from the beginning. Taxpayers will get a good deal because there will be enough recreational use for the next 20 years."

Council is expected to make a decision in January.

kspencer@png.canwest.com

I think the key statement came at the very end.."it's a useless building if [they] don't do it" Simply put and straight to the point. althought it's always deicey to state that more public money needs to be put into this but I just drove past the Oval along River Road on my infrequent visits to Richmond and the thing looks soooo impressive. It will be a landmark for Richmond and even more so if it becomes something truly useful and worthy of public adoration.

would make a nice aquatic centre..add a pool and host the world champs.

would make a nice aquatic centre..add a pool and host the world champs.

the curling venue in Vancouver is a new community centre with an Olympic sized (i think) indoor pool and an outdoor pool.

There used to be a trailer park there and the Richmond public gardens! lol oh well. Good riddance! Bring on the Oval and high rises!

yeah lets bring on this nice community centre and denser residential developments... cant wait till it opens later this year....

reminds me of a airport building , but I can remember which one now .... I looks very nice though .

Olympic venue in Richmond open for skating

Updated: Tue Sep. 16 2008 18:51:20
ctvbc.ca

With more than 500 days still to go before the 2010 Olympic Games begin, Canadian skate blades are already carving up the Olympic circuit, at the new Ricmond Oval.

"All of the construction guys were stopping to watch us when we get on the ice,'' said speed skater Kristina Groves. "You see how proud they are of the work they've done, and seeing speed skating for the first time is pretty neat for them," she said.

While the construction continues, Canada's long track speed skating team is getting the first crack at the Richmond Oval.

Among those who showed up for the very first training session were Jeremy Wotherspoon, the current 500 Metre World Champion.

"Everyone's really excited to be here right now and I think the building right now has everything we need to train"

The Oval will be a signature Olympic venue. But the original plan didn't put it on the banks of the Fraser River.

But when a proposal to locate the facility at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., was put on ice, Richmond skated into the picture.

The $180 million Oval, with its unique wood wave roof is part of a massive waterfront redevelopment project. After the games, it will be converted to a multi-purpose recreational facility.

"It'll be a place in the post-Olympic period where it'll contribute to the better health of the city of Richmond, and the province of B.C.," said Richmond Oval general manager John Mills.

"It'll be a place where high performance athletes can develop to their fullest potential."

But before then. These athletes will be making great strides in an effort to grab Olympic medals in 2010

The roster includes retired Olympic speed skater Catriona Lemay Doan, who says she is excited for all the skaters who will be able to use the facility. "This is going to be their Olympic Games,'' she said.


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Looks nice and cool inside. :)

Olympic venue in Richmond open for skating





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= great architecture.

god it's glorious!............wow, i just got religious. weird.

Cool info on the new Richmond Oval, from the Vancouver Sun:


Richmond's Olympic Oval: Bringing a vision to life

It’s set to become the marquee venue of the 2010 Olympic Games, which is fitting — those who dreamed up the Oval say the iconic building breaks all moulds
By Jeff Lee, Vancouver SunDecember 9, 2008



The 343,000-square-foot Richmond Oval, a showcase facility for the 2010 Olympics, is to be converted after the Games to a massive community facility that will accommodate two international ice sheets at one end, several hardwood ball courts in the middle and a 200-metre running track at the other end. The rest of the building will house a fitness facility, wellness centre, high-performance sport facility and offices for national sports teams. Bob Johnston has been involved in the design of many sports buildings, including the world’s first purpose-built Olympic indoor speedskating oval in Calgary and the other modern North American Olympic oval in Salt Lake City, Utah. His architectural hand has been felt in the construction of half the world’s Olympic ovals, and his knowledge of functional recreational building design has kept a small army of architects working around the world.

But when he looks at his newest creation — the iconic heron-wing speed skating oval in Richmond along the banks of the Fraser River — he sees something entirely different than what he and the rest of the architectural world have become accustomed.

When the oval opens to the public on Friday, Johnston says people will be treated to a building that breaks new ground in how large-space sporting facilities are created and used after an Olympic event. What pleases him more than anything else is that unlike most similar facilities in the world, this oval will have a post-Games legacy that will see it in constant public demand.

“That’s always been the challenge with ovals: What do you do with them afterwards and how much more use can you get out of them?” said Johnston, the 55-year-old principal in Cannon Design Inc, which won the contract to design the $178 million Oval. “This building has a different life after the Olympics.”

The concept of putting 400-metre speed skating tracks indoors is relatively new. Until the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, Olympic competitions were held outdoors. Calgary’s organizers convinced the International Skating Union to put its track inside a concrete-roofed room. In doing so, they created a facility that moderated ice conditions and, in the process, altered the sport forever. Calgary’s high-altitude ice is among the fastest in the world; it held eight of 10 world speed records until Johnston built the Salt Lake oval.

Including Calgary’s, there have been only six ovals built specifically for the Olympics, and another half dozen for World Cup or other lesser events. Such big buildings, built for a single purpose, can qualify for white-elephant status. Of the Olympic ovals, half struggle for relevance. The $300 million “M-wave” oval built for the 1996 Nagano Games, and Oval Lingotto built for the 2006 Turin Games, are now used more as convention facilities, Johnston said. The oval for the 1992 Lillehammer Games, which resembles an upturned Viking ship, also has trouble because it is not near a populated centre.

Even the Calgary and Salt Lake ovals have a limited use, primarily as homes for elite-level athlete training and as part of an international competition circuit. So against that background, it was difficult for Richmond, the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee and Johnston to justify creating a building that could only ever be used as a speed skating oval.

Instead, Johnston designed the 343,000-square-foot building to be converted after the Games to a massive community facility that will accommodate two international ice sheets at one end, several hardwood ball courts in the middle and a 200-metre running track at the other end. The rest of the building will house a fitness facility, wellness centre, high-performance sport facility and offices for national sports teams.

“Richmond sees this building as one that can transform its city,” he said. “I am a very big proponent that sport buildings are like real estate. You can have the right house on the wrong site so it is location, location, location. There is a lot of truth to that in designing effective and useful sport buildings.”

Beauty doesn’t hurt, either. During a recent tour, Marion LaRue, the project manager for Cannon Design, pointed to the use of translucent panels on the outside of the building to transfer light inside. The polycarbonate panels, shifting gradually from blue to white, were imported from the United States. “People have said it’s like we wrapped the building in silk,” she said.

The building also has been built to modern sustainability standards, including silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. The expansive refrigeration system for the Olympic-period, 400-metre track will remain, meaning the oval could host World Cup events if the cost of temporarily re-converting it to an oval is justified, said Ted Townsend, the city of Richmond’s manager of communications.

“This will probably be Canada’s largest community centre,” Townsend said. “We took into consideration Richmond’s future needs when we commissioned the building and we see it as a multi-purpose facility that will help anchor the city to its heritage on the Fraser River.”

Engineers have also incorporated a heat-exchanger that captures some of its residual energy from the refrigeration system and recycles it for space heating.

The Oval has one other secret. In a technical first, it incorporates an opportunity to vary icing conditions on different parts of the track. That’s because unlike the high altitude tracks in Calgary and Salt Lake, Richmond’s sea-level track will be slower because of barometric pressure and humidity.

“We understand that at sea level the air is thicker, which means, particularly in distance events, that you are having to go through a thicker layer and there is more resistance,” Johnston said.

“What we did with the Richmond Oval was to design the refrigeration system so that the operator can create different ice conditions at the ends than on the straightaways. You can moderate it so that the ice on the ends is microscopically softer so that you hold your edge on the skate as you go around the end, and harder on the straights so that you can go faster.”

It won’t make the track a world record-breaker, but will still give athletes a fast race, he said.

It took Johnston and a team of 50 architects about a year to design the facility. Construction began in September 2005, with pre-loading of the site with sand to settle the ground. That same year Dominion Fairmile Construction was selected as the construction manager. More than 2,200 concrete and rock pillars were driven into the ground as reinforcement since the site sits right next to the river.

Johnston says the Richmond Oval is also unique in the way it was designed. Unlike all other ovals, it is not symmetrical along the long axis and its wing-shaped wood roof — made from mountain pine beetle-killed wood — also lifts up on the north side to expose a spectacular view.

“What I am really proud about is how this building sits on the site,” he said, noting that the Calgary, Salt Lake and Lillehammer ovals are all symmetrical.

“What the Richmond Oval has done is that the site is very unique so the building structure isn’t symmetrical along the main axis. Where we have the glass all along the north side of the building, that allows the users of the building to see the foreshore and, on a good day, the mountains of the North Shore and even the towers downtown. That was a very conscious decision. We could have taken a building and made it symmetrical along the main axis like all other ovals, but that doesn’t acknowledge the site that it’s sitting on.”

Johnston, who moved to Victoria to oversee construction of the 1994 Commonwealth Games venues and never left, now has more work than he can handle. In addition to the Richmond Oval, he’s working on the 2014 Sochi Winter and 2012 London Summer Games. His company is also involved in a number of local design projects, including part of the rehabilitation of BC Place.

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More pictures of the opening last night: http://flickr.com/search/?q=richmond+oval&s=rec

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Found the cost. No worries.

Flythrough animation of the oval:
eALSVJisNBQ

"Beauty doesn’t hurt, either. During a recent tour, Marion LaRue, the project manager for Cannon Design, pointed to the use of translucent panels on the outside of the building to transfer light inside. The polycarbonate panels, shifting gradually from blue to white, were imported from the United States. “People have said it’s like we wrapped the building in silk,” she said."

Funniest thing I've heard all day. We're talking about corrugated plastic... like the stuff you can find at Home Depot. You can literally jump off the second floor by ripping a hole through those panels with a pair of scissors.

It does look quite classy at night though:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/3103509859_02fc01cbfa.jpg

from Fickr:
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^ Really nice photos!

I can't wait for the Winter Festival

If only the airport had this kind of architecture...

deasine, can you change the status of this project to "completed" in the title of the thread?

Done - sorry ^__^

Thanks! I know you are very buzy...popping in SSC and then SSP :) Great Work!

If only the airport had this kind of architecture...

Agreed. The clear spans of space achieved with wood beams is amazing.

I'm wondering if this may be a record span using wood construction.

Any architects here to comment?

^^
I guess the roof beams are not made of wood only:


The Richmond oval is the first building in the world that uses beams composed of steel and glue-laminated Douglas Fir to support its immense wood-paneled roof.

Steel usually would have been the cheapest solution to stretch across the roof’s span.

But with the price of steel driven up by demand from China, so engineers considered an opportunity to showcase B.C.’s finest wood.

Wood alone couldn’t have made the span, so steel was used as well, made as sharp as possible at the lower edge to resemble a skate blade, Scott said.


The polycarbonate cladding that lets the light in is also a first in B.C..

Wood alone couldn’t have made the span, so steel was used as well, made as sharp as possible at the lower edge to resemble a skate blade, Scott said.

Too bad in the future, it's not going to be a full long track speed skating venue. :lol:

Mayor won't change Oval's English-only sign

ROD MICKLEBURGH

April 29, 2009

VANCOUVER -- Despite the status of French as an official language of Canada and the Olympics, in the Olympic city of suburban Richmond, English reigns.

As a result, there are no plans to add a francophone element to the large unilingual sign on the outside of the municipality's spectacular Olympic speed skating oval, Mayor Malcolm Brodie declared yesterday.

"If you go through Richmond, you will not find any French signage," Mayor Brodie said. "All our civic signs are in English. We've invested well over $100-million in the Oval, and we named it and signed it just as we would for any other civic building."

The mayor was responding to criticism earlier this week by members of the Senate Committee on Official Languages who said they were disturbed by the English-only sign on a venue to be used for the Olympics.

"You went after a small pizza company [Olympia Pizza], in existence before the Olympics went to Vancouver, and said they could not use that name," B.C. Senator Mobina Jaffer reminded VANOC representatives at the Senate hearing. "You cannot let Richmond use it either."


The sign reads "Richmond Olympic Oval." It sits underneath a huge depiction of the five Olympic rings, agreed to by the International Olympic Committee.

Even as the mayor stood firm, however, the controversy heated up again later in the day, as Vancouver Olympic organizers entered the fray, on the side of bilingualism.

In a statement, VANOC spokeswoman Renée Smith-Valade said the organization intends to discuss the matter further with Richmond officials to look for ways "to render the current exterior signage bilingual."

Although lengthy discussions took place between the IOC and Richmond over the right to use the Olympic rings on the Oval ahead of the Games, the language issue was omitted, Ms. Smith-Valade said. "This was an oversight."

She acknowledged that Richmond does not have to alter the sign, but added: "We can exercise our influence on the venue owner to consider bilingual signage."

During the specific period of the Olympics, VANOC will have control of the Oval, and all signs will be in both French and English.


Among municipalities, Richmond has the highest percentage in the country of residents whose first language is neither French nor English. According to the 2006 census, fewer than 1 per cent of those living in Richmond list French as their mother tongue.

VANOC has been taking its linguistic lumps in recent days over a perceived lack of bilingualism preparations for next year's Olympics. Official languages commissioner Graham Fraser issued a report last week, expressing concern that inadequate resources were available for full translation and interpretation at the Games.

This week, members of both the Senate and House of Commons' official languages committee have raked Olympic organizers over the coals on a number of issues, from local hotels refusing to post bilingual signs to the extent of French-language television coverage to the minimal Francophone content of VANOC's one-year Olympic countdown concert in February.

In a bid to do better, VANOC has now formed its own six-member advisory committee on official languages, headed by board member Jacques Gauthier. Among the members is former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who attended the committee's first meeting last Friday. VANOC paid transportation and accommodation costs for both Mr. Raffarin and an assistant who accompanied him on the journey to and from France.

Mr. Gauthier told parliamentarians in Ottawa that he, too, had been offended by the countdown concert's lack of French-speaking performers. "I did rap [VANOC's] knuckles about it," he said, adding yesterday that Olympic organizers have learned their lesson. "I don't think the mistake will be repeated."

Liberal MP Jean-Claude D'Amours, however, was perturbed that it had taken so long to get anywhere on the issue of bilingualism.

"We've talked about this non-stop. Why has what we said carried so little weight?" Mr. D'Amours said. "This is a serious problem and it's deplorable we have had to wait so long [for action]."


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090429.BCOLYMPIC29ART2213/TPStory/National (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090429.BCOLYMPIC29ART2213/TPStory/National)