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High Performance Design
B+H and the Toronto 2015 Games

2. Hosting swimming, diving, fencing, modern pentathalon, sitting volleyball
and roller sports events during the Pan Am / Parapan Am Games, the
$205-million Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC) is the largest single
investment in Canadian amateur sport history. Its aquatics centre is one of
the first in the country to contain two 50-m pools (a competition pool and
an adjustable-depth training pool), and a diving tank. The field house boasts
a gymnasium large enough to accommodate four basketball courts or six
volleyball courts; a fitness area; a running track; and a sports medicine clinic.
Located on the north edge of the University of Toronto’s east-end
Scarborough campus (UTSC), on land jointly owned by the university and the
City of Toronto, the facility will serve in legacy mode as an athletic centre for
both university and community use. It is also the new home of the Canadian
Sport Institute Ontario (CSIO), which is part of Canada’s network of institutes
providing state-of-the-art science and sport performance services to the
nation’s top-flight athletes.
The complex occupies a site classified as a brownfield due to large amount
of contaminated soil that would have to be removed prior to construction.
The exemplar design that B+H Architects developed proposed a means of
turning this liability into an asset: instead of replacing the contaminated
soil with a comparable amount of clean fill, B+H advocated sinking a large
portion of the building into the excavation, which minimized the amount
of infilling required. We also advocated placing the main public entrance
and the athletes’ entrance on opposite sides of the building, in order to
more easily achieve separate flows for athletes and spectators – a security
requirement for all Toronto 2015 sports venues. The winning Design-Build-
Finance consortium incorporated both of these strategies into their design,
along with our proposed layout for most of the facility’s main components.
In the spring of 2015, this building became the first on the UTSC campus to
earn LEED® Gold certification. Its most noteworthy sustainable features
include a geothermal system that provides 4o per cent of the facility’s
heating and 99 per cent of its cooling, and a green roof covering 30 per cent
of the roof area.
THE CHALLENGE:
‘Right-sizing’ the venue for Games and Legacy modes
B+H’S STRATEGIC RESPONSE:
The TPASC requires a total of 8,500 spectator seats in games mode
and 5,000 seats in legacy mode – and that’s a big difference. Building
an overly large facility to accommodate the 3,500 (rented) seats
used only for the Toronto 2015 Games was not a sustainable option.
Instead, B+H proposed installing a temporary wall in the aquatics
centre, to be removed after the Games and replaced by a permanent
wall that would enclose a much smaller area. The bid-winning
consortium adopted this approach.
size: 272,500 ft² | 25,320 m²
spectator seating, games mode: 5,000 (competition pool) and 3,500 (field house)
spectator seating, legacy mode: 3,500 (competition pool) and 1,500 (field house)
games name: CIBC Pan Am / Parapan Am Aquatics Centre and Field House
b+h architects’ role: Master Planning and PDC (Planning, Design and Compliance) Prime Consultant
architect of record: NORR
Toronto Pan Am
Sports Centre
20 High Performance Design

3. Courtesy of UTSC; Photo Credit: Ken Jones
Courtesy of Infrastructure Ontario
Courtesy of UTSC; Photo Credit: Ken Jones Courtesy of UTSC; Photo Credit: Ken Jones
High Performance Design 21