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The Richmond Olympic Oval: A dream comes alive
Monday, May 4th, 2009 by GetawayBC.com
In less than a year, a single building will get more attention than any other in Richmond’s history.
When the world looks to sum up the 2010 Winter Olympic Games with a single photograph, chances are it will be of the Richmond Olympic Oval.
A venue as impressive outside as inside, the building cost $178 million to build and millions more to outfit inside and out.
And if there’s a single place to feel the power of the Olympics, it’s outside the dressing rooms inside the Richmond Olympic Oval.
Located on the lower level beyond a maze of rooms and hallways, the doors of the dressing rooms face a wide staircase. In 2010, athletes will exit the dressing rooms and head upstairs into what officials simply call “the big room.” Thousands of fans will cheer from bleachers surrounding a 400-metre speed skating track inside a cavernous space covered by a wood roof believed to be one of the largest clear spans on the continent.
Athletes will cross the ice, put their skates on and the races will begin. In all, 36 medals will be handed out in Richmond during the Games.
Those who don’t have tickets to long track events will still be able to experience much of what the building has to offer before 2010. Public skating and modern fitness facilities are open to members or drop-in users.
Perhaps the most coveted exercise bikes in the region overlook the activity floor, which is lit by floor-to-ceiling windows boasting views of the Fraser River and North Shore mountains.
The bikes are part of a 20,000 square-foot exercise room, one-third of which is filled with top-of-the-line equipment. The rest will open post-Games.
A specialty fitness studio with high-tech resistance equipment can train specific parts of the body-great for athletes recovering from injury. In the spinning and rowing room, visitors can tour the Thames or cycle the Alps with help from a video wall.
The oval also offers a host of other programs, from skating lessons to 30-minute lunchtime workouts. Basketball, badminton and futsal are offered on the infield hardwood courts. An indoor rowing tank is also scheduled to open soon.
When the Games leave town, so does the 400-metre speed skating track-unless a world cup event comes calling. In that case, the city can convert the facility floor back to accommodate skaters.
The oval track will be fully covered by hardwood courts, an indoor running track and two international-sized ice rinks.
“We’ve always said it’s more than just a speed skating facility for the Games,” said spokesman Ted Townsend. “We built for what this facility was going to be post-Games, it just so happens that it can accommodate speed skating for the Olympics.”
That planning impresses bean counters and pencil pushers around the world. But the biggest wow Richmond officials hear comes from the building’s aesthetics.
“Almost universally, wow, is the first impression people have. Just the sheer size and scale of it alone is impressive. Then when you start to look at the roof, it grabs a lot of attention. Then when you tell people the story about the roof, that it uses pine beetle wood, it just adds to the effect.”
Some of the building’s trim work has been milled from trees toppled on the site before construction.
Through it all the city has managed to work within the confines of its capital budget. It did, however, increase the budget by $23 million early in the process to accommodate a ground-level parking garage, which brought the oval’s main floor in line with the dyke, giving the building and its waterfront plaza the knock-out views.
The most comparable example of the oval grounds is perhaps Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, a gathering place where grass and gardens meet public art, hard concrete lines and the water.
Planners sought to make a statement at the entrance to the site. Buster Simpson was hired to design Skate Blades on the short span over the Hollybridge Canal, towering LED light polls designed to resemble a speed skater’s blades.
Few knew the canal even existed before the oval. It runs from the river into a light industrial neighbourhood that’s ready for redevelopment into a high-density downtown neighbourhood. The section of the canal adjoining the oval site will get special landscaping, highlighting Richmond’s water surroundings.
A roadside plaza now faces a bubbling pond fed by storm water running off the oval’s massive roof. A swirling red boardwalk meant to resemble a Chinese dragon takes visitors through the oval-side oasis, leading to the dramatic public art of Janet Echelman.
Echelman’s bold work is Water Sky Garden. It’s a feast for the senses. A pair of red, steel tubular circles the size of a helicopter landing pad are suspended by cables, allowing red nets to hang from them. The nets look large enough to bag a whale. Lights will shine up through the water garden into the artwork.
The building itself is clad in polycarbonate siding shaded in cascading blue hues to symbolize the river meeting the ocean.
“Polycarbonate siding is used quite commonly in Europe and elsewhere in the world, but it’s the first time that it’s been used in this area. The neat thing about it is it’s translucent, so it allows natural light to filter through, maximizing the use of natural light inside the building,” said Townsend.
Along with glass windows, the siding is pasted to three sides of the building. The north side is entirely glass.
From the outside, visitors will see the anti-doping laboratory for the Winter Olympics. It will transform into a sports medicine clinic post-Games. Parking is at the east end. Behind a row of storefronts, offices and child-minding space, 450 parking stalls are tucked inside.
Amid all the architectural eye candy is the front lobby. Three storeys of glass create a dramatic entrance for visitors, who will come in the form of media and officials during the Games, when spectators’ entrance will be shifted to the north plaza.
On the plaza, part of the view is obscured by the first building in the development planned by ASPAC, which owns and leases the land surrounding the oval. The building will serve as a sales centre for its condominiums before it becomes a restaurant.
There’s views here of Musqueam artist Susan Point’s motifs of heron, salmon and the river in what otherwise would simply be concrete gutters. The plaza steps down toward the top of the dyke to link in with the waterfront trail system. The steps double as seats and also serve as an amphitheatre.
It’s all an Olympic-sized shift from the grassy field that was here five years ago.;