Markin MacPhail Centre - Canada Olympic Park

Calgary, AB
Construction Cost: $189.9 million (Canadian)
Area / Square Feet: 500,000
Occupancy Date: September 2013

Located at Canada Olympic Park, the Markin MacPhail Centre is the centerpiece of Canada’s Winter Sports Institute and home to more than 125 elite winter-sport athletes, marrying high-performance training with community recreation in an athlete-centered environment. The center is home to many of Canada’s national and provincial sport organizations — including Hockey Canada, Alpine Canada and WinSport Canada — as well as Canada’s gold-medal-winning women’s hockey program. The facility contains three NHL-size hockey rinks with 300 seats each, an international arena with 3,500 seats, dry-land training facilities, public fitness spaces, administration offices, and conference and banquet facilities. A central public circulation space parallels a sprint track, binds facility components together and provides views and access to the various functional elements. Precast concrete, steel columns and glulam beams have been used throughout the building to create a sense of openness. The facility is built into the naturally rolling foothills of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent to Canada Olympic Park and its bobsled/luge, skiing and ski jump facilities. The massing and form of the building was informed by the surrounding landscape. Rolling roofs cover the hockey rinks and the international arena, while a conventional curtain wall is used to clad the high-performance training area and office building.