JUNE 2018 |73Seton Recreation Facility

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Seton Recreation Facilityby ROBIN BRUNET

Enormous: that’s the word being used to describe the new Seton Recreation Facility in Calgary, refer-

ring not only to the project’s physical size, but its scope of amenities, chal-lenges in construction, and positive impact on the greater community.

Situated in the heart of Seton, a new southeast Calgary urban centre, the 330,000-square-foot recreation facility, which is owned by the City of Calgary (with YMCA Calgary as the selected operator), provides a blend of leisure, sports, arts, cultural, and rec-reational opportunities as well as a competitive sport venue for Calgary’s amateur sport community. The facility is the last of four new recreation facili-ties to be built in Calgary to respond to the city’s growing need for amenities in underserved areas – a total invest-ment of $480 million. Each facility was designed to meet the specific needs of the community in which it is situated.

Upon completion, the amenities at the Seton Recreation Facility will include a 50-metre, 10-lane competi-tion pool with competition dive tower and diving boards; a leisure pool with a surf-riding area; two multipurpose ice rinks; three gymnasiums; fitness rooms and equipment; a 200-metre running track; a 25,000-square-foot library, gallery space and a 250-seat theatre; plus a youth centre. In the future, it will be augmented by a high school, a regional park, and a station for a planned southeast LRT.

Gibbs Gage Architects was hired in 2012 to develop a master plan for the entire 45-acre site. Including the LRT and other elements meant that the rec-reation complex would occupy a fairly constrained area (20.6 acres), on slop-ing terrain.

In creating their design narrative, the architects decided the form of the facility should allude to “the rug-ged land swept and formed by the dominant Chinook winds that in turn shape the way Calgarians live.” From above, the facility appears as a series of curved, intersecting, and offset wave forms – the very antithesis of the monolithic box structures characteriz-ing most facilities of this kind.

David Wittman, partner at Gibbs Gage Architects, says, “We took advan-tage of the sloping terrain to organize people circulation and access points, and because the facility required 1,000 parking stalls the terrain helped us break up the mass by having the lot split into two terraced levels – with the lower level designed as a parking lot that would also be an area for pick-up hockey or basketball, thanks to the inclusion of painted lanes, nets, and the curved corners you find in a hockey rink.”

Three entrances were created: in the east (for those using the park-ing lot); northwest (in anticipation of people coming from the future LRT sta-tion); and southwest (facing the future high school).

Wittman says the challenge of a facility this large was getting natural light as far into the structure as pos-sible without ruining function. “So we designed a 3D truss system that would sweep down each of the three main cir-culation zones, culminating in a twist as the zones merge together in the cen-tre of the facility where the library and fitness entrances are located.”

Creating open views throughout the interior was crucial to the user-friend-liness of the facility. “We designed it so that as you move inward along the circulation zones, there would always be interesting activity drawing you further in, whether it was the sight of people enjoying the standing surf machines, or the gymnastics area, or the dive tower,” says Wittman.

Fibre cement panels and corru-gated metal cladding were chosen to augment the complicated roof forms, “and these materials bleed into the

LOCATION19340 45th Street SE, Calgary, Alberta

OWNER/DEVELOPERCity of Calgary

ARCHITECTGibbs Gage Architects

GENERAL CONTRACTORBird Construction

STRUCTURAL CONSULTANTRJC Engineers

MECHANICAL CONSULTANTRemedy Engineering

ELECTRICAL CONSULTANTSMP Engineering

CIVIL CONSULTANTJubilee Engineering

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTGround3 Landscape Architects

LEED CONSULTANTMission Green Buildings

TOTAL SIZE330,000 square feet

TOTAL COST$193 million

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Seton Recreation Facility

interior, culminating in sweeping drywall elements in the hub of the building,” says Wittman. All of the lights in the structure and outside areas will use LED bulbs, and a natu-ral gas-fired generator will provide combined heat and power.

3D modelling was required to develop the three different mechani-cal rooms required for the facility. “We determined the precise location of every unit that would go into these rooms before passing over the plans to Bird Construction,” says Gibbs Gage contract administrator Chris Johnson. In fact, every aspect of the project was BIM modelled, from clash detection to finishes and technical systems.

Construction commenced in the spring of 2016, and John Preston, senior project manager at Bird, notes that over 15,000 cubic metres of con-crete would be used on the project. Most flatwork is exposed concrete that had to be treated, polished, and sealed.

He says, “Essentially, the facility consists of three tiers beginning with services, the pool, and fitness areas above, then the arena, theatre, and other amenities on top. It was a substan-tial excavation, and right in the middle of the dig it began to rain – heavily.”

Preston goes on to note that “pumps were everywhere and we were put-ting down stone to get a working surface.” Another challenge was that while the facility would have a conven-tional foundation, some areas required upwards of four metres of upfill. “The design specified with cement stabi-lized backfill,” he says. “Also, parts of the pool slab would support parts of the arena above, and after extensive consultation with RJC we modified the foundation and we were able to install the structural steel for the arena first between December and January of 2016. Then, after the roof was up, we were pouring concrete for the dive tower, slide columns, leisure pool walls, and some deckfill and suspended slabs. It was incredibly complicated, but we enclosed the building in time for inte-rior work by the winter of 2017.”

In addition to crediting the human talent involved in the project, Preston says that by using BIM and PlanGrid, Bird was able to determine matters such as how to integrate the founda-tion for the site’s construction crane into the building’s foundation, saving time and reducing costs. The software also allowed the team to keep track of several thousand requests for informa-tion. “Despite uncontrollable factors

such as weather, the efficiencies pro-vided by BIM allowed us to stay on schedule,” says Preston.

As of April, crews were working double shifts as anticipated to fin-ish concrete work on the interior rink slabs, install suspended ceilings and millwork to the library, install toppings and tile to the pools and change rooms, and tackle numerous other jobs in

anticipation of handing over the facility to get it operations-ready in early 2019.

Wittman concludes, “The City of Calgary set the bar high in terms of quality, and even though there’s still a lot of work left to be done, we’re very satisfied with what has taken shape. This is an amazing building, a true landmark for the young neighbourhood of Seton.” A

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