PROJECT Churchill Meadows Community Centre and Sports Park, Mississauga, Ontario

ARCHITECT MJMA Architecture & Design

TEXT Elsa Lam

Photos Scott Norsworthy, unless otherwise noted

Toronto-based MJMA has steadily evolved the typology of the aquatic centre since its competition win for the Grand River Aquatic Centre in Kitchener, Ontario, in 1988. In the 36 years since, the firm has been awarded three Governor General’s Medals in Architecture for pool buildings. And this spring, one of its recent projects cinched Ontario’s top architecture prize: the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Architecture went to Churchill Meadows Community Centre, located at the suburban western edge of Mississauga, Ontario.

The new facility shows how MJMA is not content to rest on its laurels, but rather, has been continuing to innovate from the basis of its successes. Churchill Meadows Recreation Centre shares a similar planning approach to MJMA’s Pam McConnell Aquatic Centre in Toronto’s Regent Park, which was acclaimed for its generous natural light and new-to-Canada introduction of universal change rooms. Both facilities have window-ringed pools, flanked by a block of universal change rooms, and edged with an access corridor set alongside a glazed façade; to this parti, Churchill Meadows adds a triple gymnasium and partial second floor. 

But here the similarities end. Churchill Meadows has decisively raised the bar for design excellence. This was in part enabled by MJMA’s wide scope on the project: the firm was responsible not only for the building, but for its surrounding landscape and for the masterplan of the 50-acre park in which it sits. Instead of sinking the rec centre to the back of the site, behind a sea of parking, the designers decided to rotate it 45 degrees relative to the urban grid, so that the building faces the cardinal directions. As a result, parking is pushed to two corners of the site, and the building becomes a focal point for the surrounding park.

Led by MJMA principal Chris Burbidge and design architect Tyler Walker, the team next opted to design the rec centre as a long, skinny rectangle, ringed by covered walkways. The most spectacular of these is a 130-metre-long promenade that stretches alongside the building’s western edge, facing the park. The two-storey outdoor space is topped by a sculptural parade of V-shaped glulam rafters edged with expanded metal mesh, providing a snow-free promenade in the winter, and a shady respite in the summer. Many recreation centres boast an outdoor public promenade of some type—a kind of enlarged version of a home’s front porch—but few achieve the combined sense of both intimacy and grandeur that is present at Churchill Meadows.

The creation of this promenade, explains Walker, stems from the core idea of the project: “pulling the façade apart and making it do as much as possible,” in order to blur the boundary between inside and outside. “The hope was that it would wrap the building in this kind of ‘sticky’ space where people gather, pause, and socialize—the idea of social infrastructure—while simultaneously shading the building and interiors.”

A highly efficient building section was developed with Blackwell Structural Engineers’ Ian Mountfort to work within the project’s tight budget, while maximizing visual impact. A series of glulam columns supports the building’s roof, and is the main support for the façade panels. To avoid diagonal members detracting from the rhythm of the columns, lateral bracing was moved into the core of the building, which was possible because of the volume’s thin proportions. 

The glulam columns are remarkably slender—just 136mm wide and 450mm deep. This is because they work in triads, with each steel roof truss supported by three columns tied together at their top, middle, and bottom points for stability. 

The steel angle tying the columns together at their bottom point supports a bench that extends the length of the building’s interior and exterior. Air supply vents and radiators are tucked under this bench, out of sight and safe from kicking feet chasing stray balls. In the gym and pool areas, the generous ledge is a convenient place for depositing backpacks, water bottles, and swim towels. Outside, it welcomes lingering—a sheltered place to sit, chat with friends, or watch playing kids.

On the east façade, the second floor volume cantilevers out to create extra-deep window alcoves on the upper floor—favourite activity nooks for children attending programs in the community kitchen and multi-purpose studios. On the lower floor, the projecting volume forms a canopy that creates a sheltered approach to the centre. The long bench makes an appearance here, too, providing indoor and outdoor amenity. 

If the short section of the project is an essay in maximizing the function and efficiency of a structure and its façades, the long section tells a story about inviting in light. Seven north-facing skylights, arrayed along the length, mark out the functions of the building: three skylights illuminate the three sections of the gymnasium, one crowns a central atrium, and three mark the pool. 

While the ceiling is shaped over each program space to support lighting, acoustics, and ventilation, the most dramatic sculpting happens over the warm water leisure pool, where the ceiling dips down to create a more intimate interior space. This continues an exploration of shaped roofs from the firm’s aquatic centre at the University of British Columbia, completed with Acton Ostry Architects, where a lowered ceiling caps and frames the leisure pool. “Pools are grand rooms and they want ceilings to define the space,” says Burbidge.

Both views and light are carefully considered in the natatorium. Swimmers enjoy park vistas to the west and to the north of the pool; a strategically located hill brings extra green into the view and conceals sports fields and a distant highway. 

“The quality of light that’s captured in this building is one of the most successful parts of the project,” says MJMA partner Ted Watson. Daylight is carefully filtered and balanced to cut glare, minimizing the need for the City operators to lower sun-blocking blinds. From the west, the expanded metal mesh and glulam struts provide shade without impeding the sense of openness between indoors and out, while the 450-millimetre-deep glulam columns act like giant venetian blinds, lowering heat gain. The use of a universal change room, equipped with individual and family-sized privacy cubicles, allows for daylight to enter through glazing to both sides of the change area.

The inclusion of a mass timber feature stair in the main atrium is audacious for a project that aims to be as open and transparent as possible. But it works, in part because it’s treated like a freestanding sculptural element. The upper portion of the stair is supported by 20-metre-long CLT beams—the longest self-supporting mass timber members available from Nordic Structures at the time of manufacturing. These eight-foot-wide, one-foot-thick beams land on delicate V-shaped steel supports, while the rest of the stair is supported by glulam hangers that integrate with the west wall. Beyond its impressive structural gymnastics, this serves to maintain a clear view corridor from the main entrance through to the park beyond. The only point of visual friction is the rough quality of the mass timber—because of the way that large CLT members are manufactured, it can have visible cracks and inconsistencies, unlike the more polished look one has become accustomed to with glulam.

The project began in 2016, before embodied carbon was a widespread topic of discussion, but the building has also proven progressive in this aspect. The optimized structure means that there is no secondary steel, reducing a major contributor to a building’s embodied carbon footprint. MJMA recently undertook a carbon analysis of 14 projects in its portfolio, and found that Churchill Meadows’ embodied carbon intensity of 435 CO2e/m2 put it at the lower end of its buildings with concrete pool basins. 

The learnings from this internal embodied carbon study, as well as from the design of Churchill Meadows, are already informing MJMA’s next set of buildings, particularly several mass timber buildings on its drawing boards. But while all recreation centres are similar in program, the buildings are also distinct—reflecting the diversity of individual communities. The unique identity of Churchill Meadows is perhaps most evident on Friday evenings, when the gymnasium hosts Muslim prayers, a function facilitated by foot baths built to the sides of the gym’s twin access corridors. “It’s amazing when you see it—they come up and set up all of the prayer mats straight to Mecca,” says Burbidge. Basket hoops pulled up and pickleball nets tucked away, with sunset colours framed by the wood structure to the west, the architecture gracefully transforms from a sports facility to a place of worship—a building truly at the heart of its community.

CLIENT City of Mississauga | ARCHITECT TEAM David Miller (FRAIC), Chris Burbidge (MRAIC), Tyler Walker (MRAIC), Ted Watson (FRAIC), Tarisha Dolyniuk (FRAIC), Tim Belanger, Andrew Filarski (FRAIC), Robert Allen (FRAIC), Obinna Ogunedo, Leland Dadson, Kris Vassilev, Darlene Montgomery, Jasper Flores, Caleb Tsui, Natalia Ultremari, Jeremy Campbell, Caileigh MacKellar, Kyung-Sun Hur | STRUCTURAL Blackwell | MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAL Smith + Andersen | CIVIL EMC Group | LANDSCAPE MJMA Architecture & Design | INTERIORS MJMA Architecture & Design | CONTRACTOR Aquicon Construction | EXPERIENTIAL GRAPHIC DESIGN/SIGNAGE & WAYFINDING MJMA Architecture & Design | AREA 7,000 m2 | BUDGET $48  (Community Centre & district park) / $61.8 M (2023 escalated) | COMPLETION October 2021

ENERGY USE INTENSITY (PROJECTED) 570.2  kWh/m2/year

As appeared in the June 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine

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Brock University’s newly expanded athletic centre has won the NIRSA Outstanding Facilities Award for the Canadian Region.

Completed late in 2020, The Zone is a $7.39 million project that involved the renovation and addition of 16,250 square feet for the fitness centre, home to both elite training and everyday programs.

The design team was led by architecture firm mcCallumSather, and included consultants WSP and landscape architects TerraPlan. Aquicon Construction served as Construction Manager.

“We have had so much fun working on The Zone, especially because we know how meaningful the project is to this campus. What’s really exciting is that it reflects the University’s strong athletics culture and vision of its Student Union, who were very involved,” said Drew Hauser, Director of Design & Business Development at mcCallumSather.
The students’ vision for their expanded fitness centre included a transformed courtyard experience, replacing the heavy awning and closed-off space with a light-filled and vibrant space.

The double-height interior features a series of active mezzanines that boldly feature the campus colours and its mascot. A long turf section creates an area for walking, runs or sprints, and gives workout options with different training surfaces.

The centre also includes a multi-purpose space for TRX, heavy bags, plyo boxes and hurdles; cardio areas in the mezzanine that can be easily accessed without passing through the weight-training areas; a free weight area; and Olympic Lift, strength, and conditioning areas. Group fitness areas are more private, with a specialized spin studio and yoga studio. In the spin studio, the design incorporates a wood louvered wall system that allows light and connection into the space when open, and sound seclusion during spin class.

“The Zone expansion has quickly made the fitness facility an integral component of the student experience at Brock University, providing opportunity for physical, mental and personal growth,” says Asad Bilal, Brock University Student Union President.

The awards, part of a larger program that rewards all aspects of Collegiate Recreation Leadership and Promotion, recognizes excellence in the innovative designs of new, renovated, and/or expanded collegiate recreation and wellness facilities at NIRSA member institutions.

Officially announced at the beginning of March, the awards will be presented at a ceremony on March 29 in Portland, Oregon.

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ARCHITECT Les architectes FABG

TEXT Marc Blouin

PHOTOS Steve Montpetit

Designing a new paddock for the Formula One Grand Prix in Montreal would be a dream project for any architect who loves auto racing. For his part, however, Eric Gauthier, principal of Les architectes FABG, freely admits that he had no interest in Formula One before winning the project.

FABG, nonetheless, was deservedly awarded this out-of-the-ordinary commission. The firm has long been involved with working in Parc Jean-Drapeau. The park occupies an island, just south of downtown Montreal. It’s the site of Expo 67 and the location of the racetrack that bears the name of legendary Quebec driver Gilles Villeneuve, who won the first Grand Prix contested on the circuit in October 1978, in a light fog of snow, at the helm of a Ferrari.

FABG founder André Blouin was the associated architect for the French pavilion at Expo 67. In 1993, FABG converted the former US pavilion—a dome by Buckminster Fuller—into an environmental museum. For the F1 paddock, the architects channelled the spirit of the light, temporary, and often prefabricated pavilions that were built for Expo 67—along with having a streamlined aesthetic in mind.

Prefabrication would reduce the required on-site construction time, making it an attractive choice, given the extremely tight timetable for the delivery of the paddock. The chosen approach was remarkable for its approach to risk management, as well as for the coordination needed to combine several different prefabrication systems in the building’s structure and envelope.

In order to reduce reliance on a single supplier, the architects decided to select three sub-contractors. Each was responsible for one of the project’s major components: the prefabricated concrete for the team garages, bleachers, and stairs; the steel superstructure; and the glulam and cross-laminated timber roof. The three superimposed layers create an impression of lightness and fluidity, despite the building’s strong modularity. The wood roof floats over a middle level of terraces and bleachers that is entirely open to the outdoors. The exposed design allows one to appreciate the precise connection details between the building’s component strata—especially the complex geometry of the connections between the Y-shaped steel columns and the structural wood roof members.

The most spectacular aspect of the project is its wood roof, which unifies the interior and exterior of the building. The roof extends to form a wood-skeleton canopy over the building’s adjoining spaces. FABG used this strategy in earlier projects, notably, in the Salle multifunctionnelle de Mont-Laurier, and most recently, for a theatre in Repentigny. The concept of a structure with timber cribbing was previously employed by Saucier + Perrotte and HCMA for Montreal’s Stade de Soccer, where it was deployed in an organic, free-flowing composition. The pleated effect that results from this type of roof can be seen in the new British Grand Prix paddock at Silverstone, designed by Populous, making for photogenic aerial views during televised broadcasts.

In FABG’s paddock, the wood cribbing is more understated. Its triangulated pattern references Fuller’s geodesic dome, which can be seen in the distance. FABG’s modernist influences are visible in the geometric rigour of the roof, as well as the orthogonality of the building’s overall volumes.

Approaching the paddock, visitors find themselves directly on the long axis of the linear building. A monumental staircase leads up to the terraces, inscribed within the large volume bounded by the roof structure. The view from these terraces gives an impression of being at the afterdeck of a ship, gazing at a furrow-like wake formed by the long straight line of the racetrack and the pit lane. Prime spot! At the opposite end of the building, offices for the event’s sponsors project past the roof structure, giving the building directionality, as if it were a cruise liner docked at Montreal’s port.

As a whole, the building forms the welcoming infrastructure for the grand circus of Formula One that descends on Montreal once a year, with its own furnishings, moveable partitions, and equipment for F1 personnel and competitors, media and guests. In the case that Formula One ever withdrew Montreal from the circuit, the program anticipated that the whole building could be repurposed for other functions—or entirely disassembled and moved to another site.

This concept of reusing spaces and structures is linked to larger principles of sustainability. F1 has taken a green turn in recent years, and the architects wished to counterbalance the energy-consumptive context of the sport with an environmentally advanced building. The resulting structure uses carbon-sequestering wood, solar panels, and non-air-conditioned terraces, contributing to a positive image of the event, as well as to a significant reduction of its ecological footprint.

The new Montreal paddock also reflects F1’s desire to dismantle its elitist image, in keeping with our times. Its recent support of Black Lives Matter, led by six-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton, is an eloquent sign of this change. The choice to include open-air terraces throughout the Montreal building aligns with the spirit of outdoor events, and the summer festivals that animate the city. Along with the Grand Prix events in Austin, Texas, and Mexico City, it follows in a North American tradition where auto racing is part of popular culture, rather than a global event where celebrities imbibe cocktails in air-conditioned boxes, insulated from the roar of motors.

Through their work, the architects seem to level a critique against the excessive costs and ostentation of Formula One. Interestingly, though, the most important and least visible aspect of Formula One is its support of research and development. The conception and construction of FABG’s advanced wood canopies follows a similar R&D process to the technology-driven sport: development of a concept, evolution of form, technological refinement—all to arrive at a finished product, the F1 Paddock, that perfectly fulfills a given mandate. Pushing the analogy further, the construction of the project in less than 10 months—the interval of time between two Grand Prix races—is similar to the work of mechanics, who labour overnight on Saturday to restore a car in time for the Sunday afternoon race. Overall, a roaring success.

Architect Marc Blouin is co-founder of Montreal-based Blouin Orzes architectes.

CLIENT Société du Parc Jean-Drapeau | LEAD ARCHITECT Éric Gauthier, FRAIC | STRUCTURAL/MECHANICAL/ELECTRICAl CIMA+ | CONTRACTOR Groupe GEYSER  | AREA 22,500 m² | BUDGET $50 M | COMPLETION May 2019 SOLAR PANEL ENERGY PRODUCTION 87,600 kWh/year | ESTIMATED ENERGY USED DURING FORMULA 1 WEEKEND 88,940 kWh/year

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