Page 12 - Winter 2010

RICHMOND OLYMPIC OVAL
Marshall Long
Marshall Long Acoustics 13636 Riverside Drive Sherman Oaks, California 91423
The Richmond Olympic Oval in Games. The Oval will be converted into
Vancouver, Canada is the largest
structure built for the 2010
Olympic Winter Games. Dramatically
located beside the Fraser River, with
expansive views north to the Coast
Mountains, this monumental building
stretches to a length of five football fields laid side by side. It will host the long track speed skating events along with the 8000 expected fans. This distinctive structure, shown in Fig. 1, will be the architectural symbol of these games.
The City of Richmond wanted an iconic building that could accommodate multiple uses and also attract public attention and development to the area. They selected a wood- en structure designed to highlight the local wood industry and give the main hall a warm ambiance. From the outset, the building was intended for adaptive reuse after the Olympic
Fig. 2. Curved rooftop under construction with view of the Fraser River and Coast Mountains (Photo by Ziggy Welsch, George Third & Son Ltd., ziggy@gthird.com Courtesy Wood WORKS! BC).
8 Acoustics Today, January 2010
“The final result was a ceiling structure of stunning beauty and great practicality.”
a multi-use sports facility for the citi- zens of Vancouver, with two ice rinks, racquet courts, a 200 meter track, rub- berized turf area and even a high per- formance workout area.
The design team consisted of Fast & Epp Structural Engineers, Cannon Design Architects, design-builder StructureCraft Builders, and Marshall Long Acoustics Acoustical Engineers. George Third & Son, Ltd. Steel Contractor and twenty-four other firms also con-
tributed to the construction.
The visually spectacular six-acre free span roof had to
provide not only the structural capacity, but also had to meet stringent acoustical requirements. The structural system had never before been built, so extensive modeling and testing was required. Shown under construction in Fig. 2, it is shaped like a turtle’s back with upturned sides.
The roof is supported by massive curved wood and steel composite beams spanning 330 feet from end to end across the structure. Between the beams are striking vee-shaped WoodWave© panels constructed from Pine Beetle-killed trees that were sawn into 2x4s and bolted together in undu- lating sections to create a rippled effect. These shapes create an impressive visual appearance, giving the ceiling its signa- ture look. The Main Hall is shown in Fig. 3.
Virtually all rooms of this size are hampered by long reverberation times and poor speech intelligibility. This is particularly troubling for public gatherings and sporting events where communication is essential. With a convention- al hard roof the reverberation time (the time it takes for a sound to die out in a room) would have been many seconds, making speech nearly impossible to understand. The solu- tion to excess reverberation is to install large amounts of
Fig. 3. Main Hall with massive curved beams and WoodWave© panels (Courtesy Fast & Epp Structural Engineers and Wood WORKS! BC).
Fig. 1. Exterior view of the main entrance to the Richmond Olympic Oval at night (Photo by Kam Lau http://kamlau.com).