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We are now only 9 months away from the Pan and Parapan Am Games which come to the Greater Toronto Area starting in July 2015. Work continues on completing each of the facilities that will be part of the grand event, including the Atos Markham Pan Am / Parapan Am Centre. The facility, which will be hosting badminton, table tennis and water polo, is designed by Toronto's B+H Architects. The $78.5 million building covers 147,000 square feet and includes a 34,000 square foot triple gymnasium with maple floors; a 10-lane, 50-metre Olympic size pool with a movable floor and two bulk heads to divide the pool into smaller swim areas; a 2-level fitness centre; and six multi-use rooms.
A tour around the building's exterior reveals a modernist design with minimal yet eye-catching gestures, and a generous sheltering roof overhang that emphasizes the horizontality of the expansive suburban site.
Starting at the northwest corner in the image below, we get a view of the north facade that faces Enterprise Drive in the centre and to the left, and the west side of the building to the right. The building's north elevation is its main face to the city along Enterprise Boulevard and features a colourful palette of vertical fins, which are now installed above the ground floor, as shown in the picture below.
The image below highlights the colourful fins in red, yellow, and blue which cover the middle floors, and the ground floor which is glazed with bird-friendly fritted windows; birds see the enamelled frit dots and don't fly into the glass.
Below we see the entrance on the northeast corner of Main Street and Enterprise Boulevard. The building steps down here, offering a sheltering overhang which indicates where the main doors are. Outside the doors is a piazza—an Italian term for urban square and gathering space that best describes the intended use—which is just one of a set of piazzas along the facility facing Main Street.
A closer look below at the northeast corner of the centre reveals that work is still being done on the facility's soffits.
The southeast corner of the building's main entrance similarly has roof edge and soffit work to be completed. Extensive piazza space graces this area too, as the facility is being built to welcome large numbers form the community with long-term use in mind.
Inside the main entrance, the large glass windows allow for a great amount of natural light to enter the five-storey facility. Look closely (you can click on any photo to enlarge them), and you will see the bird-friendly dots which stop birds dying from flying into windows. The Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) has changed the way we design glazing within 12 metres of the ground, where most birds fly.
The natural light streaming through the windows highlights the interior's rich palette of materials and warm tones in various shades of brown and yellow.
The Markham Atos Pan Am Centre sits on Enterprise Boulevard, just west of Kennedy Road and north of the 407, and is 1 of 10 new Pan Am venues being built in time for the Games. Amongst the 25 facilities to be used for the Games next summer, the Markham Centre will host waterpolo, badminton, table tennis and parapan table tennis.
The Markham Centre's grand opening is scheduled for November, although 12 test events ahead of the games are already underway, the first of which is being held now through October 19, with approximately 100 international badminton athletes competing in the new facility.
The City of Markham hopes that the facility will help turn Markham into a sport destination, as one component of a larger plan to create a new tourist-freiendly downtown.
We plan to bring you further into the centre in future updates. If you want more information now you can click on the link to our dataBase file for the project below. If you want to get in on the conversation, you can click the link to the associated Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
| Related Companies: | B+H Architects |
