Faced with a need to expand sports programming amid objections to the visual impact of a large facility next to historic Westmount Park, the Westmount City Council took an unconventional route: build underground, increase the green space and open up new vistas.
The complex features two underground NHL-size ice rinks, a 20-by-25-meter outdoor competition pool with a wading pond, multipurpose activity rooms, a teen center, a community café and the administrative offices of the City’s Sports and Recreation Department. The WRC’s design takes advantage of the site’s topography by burying ice rinks in the upper part of a slope using a custom-designed concrete and steel structure, thereby gaining 1.5 acres of green space with its landscaped roof. Large windows provide natural light to a café at the park level, and to offices, fitness rooms and pool locker rooms at mid-slope. A landscaped stormwater pond with underground water management system completes the lower portion of the site.
The defining features of WRC’s entrance pavilion — red brick with sloped roofing — are characteristic of its neighborhood, soften the overall visual impact and are in keeping with the public pavilions found in other city parks. The colors and textures of the zinc roof, masonry walls, Norman-size clay brick and curtain wall glazing of the café fit the adjacent architecture, as do the pale concrete edging and steel railing at the south end of the green roof.