A delicate, jutting roof of steel and wood
Spectator Seating at Simon Fraser University near Vancouver
© Andrew Latreille, andrewlatreille.com
For a university campus in the Canadian city of Burnaby, Perkins&Will have collaborated with structural engineering firm Fast + Epp to design a grandstand whose elegance is setting new standards. The bleachers connect the Lorne Davies Complex, which is the central sports building at Simon Fraser University, with the lower-lying Terry Fox Field. Just over 1800 spectators can sit here in plastic bucket seats; the uncovered area offers seating steps for a further 300 people.
© Andrew Latreille, andrewlatreille.com
The locker rooms for the university’s football teams and their guests are situated beneath the grandstand. At the upper end of the rows of seats, a glazed press gallery has been set up at the centre of the space under the imposing roof.
The support-free roof, which protrudes 16 m as it tapers towards the playing field, forms a lightweight contrast not only to the concrete grandstands, but also to the massive-looking 1960s-era building that stands behind it.
© Andrew Latreille, andrewlatreille.com
The roof integrates its own internal steel construction. Each cantilever beam of steel box girders that bear the canopy roof weighs 13 t, is 22 m long and up to 1,5 m tall. Enormous, seven-layered panels of cross-laminated timber have been suspended from the underside of the roof and span the 2,4 m between each steel girder.
© Andrew Latreille, andrewlatreille.com
© Andrew Latreille, andrewlatreille.com
The point fixings on the solid-wood elements are covered with wooden plugs and thus invisible. The wooden underside of the roof is interrupted only here and there by flush-mounted lighting and loudspeakers.
© Andrew Latreille, andrewlatreille.com
While some of the steel girders at the upper end of the bleachers lie on steel columns, others lie on concrete walls inside the press gallery. On the back, they have been rear-anchored in the massive grandstand subconstruction with stainless-steel tension rods. As delicate as these may appear at first glance, they must be extremely stable. Each of them has a diameter of 76 mm. According to the structural engineers, the steel is of a quality otherwise used on structures such as oil rigs.
Architecture: Perkins&Will
Client: Simon Fraser University
Location: Terry Fox Field, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby V5A 1S6 (CA)
Structural engineering: Fast + Epp
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