The new Bear Creek Athletics Centre provides residents with a world-class athletic centre that seamlessly combines sports, recreation and community events in a facility that is integrated into the natural setting of the park. The centre will elevate Surrey’s status as a regional hub for premier soccer, football, and track and field activities.
The facility includes a partially covered grandstand with seating for 2,200 spectators that incorporates repurposed structural wood materials. An expressive canopy structure is comprised of a GLT roof supported by glulam beams. These beams are braced by ‘balanced cantilever’ steel beams on vertical cantilever steel columns and supported by the grandstand structure below.
Using the right selection of materials was paramount to the success and longevity of the structure. Concrete stands as the bedrock, chosen for its durability and stability, making it the ideal foundation and base. Moving upward, steel emerges as the backbone of cantilever framing, offering a remarkable strength-to-size ratio and resistance to deformation. Meanwhile, wood finds its place as the finishing touch, adding aesthetic charm, ensuring minimal perching, and sustainable appeal.
The project uses reclaimed wood in the structure of all decking across the building and glulams at lower levels. The back of house structures comprise reclaimed GLT roof on reclaimed glulam beams supported on concrete and CMU walls. In addition to the grandstand, the new facility also provides changerooms and public washrooms located underneath the grandstand, an upgraded track aligned with international sport standards, and plaza areas for concession and ticketing spaces.