Location: Toronto, Ontario
Date of Completion: 2015
OAA Awards 2017 Design Excellence Finalist
The BMX Supercross Legacy Project from the Toronto Pan Am Games 2015 is an object in a landscape and a sinuous landscape of its own making. It is located in Centennial Park, on a Public Transit route. The park is large and active in offering many individual and team sports venues.
Site Plan
Diagram Credit: Kleinfeldt Mychajlowycz Architects Inc.
As a structure within a park, it accommodates:
-the park’s storage needs for a variety of park uses; and
-two permanent Start Ramps for BMX Supercross events (10 meters and 5 meters high).
It is a permanent, concrete and steel screened structure, and a 517 meter, ephemeral dirt track. And it consists of a board formed retaining wall of over 27 meters length and ranging in height from 0.5 to 6 meters high.
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
The Start Ramps can be seen from Eglinton Avenue and begins the journey into the park. The track is capable of being used by young children (5 meter start gate) and Olympian bikers (10 meter start gate), as it was designed to the exacting standards of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) certification board. The track allows for opening the park up to a wider range of users than previously considered including. There are very few BMX tracks that have a permanent Start Ramp structure and of those, most are of steel construction. This facility gives a permanent training home to the Canadian BMX Community and the local community. It will be used by young biking enthusiasts from 5 year olds to adults.
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
From its inception, the BMX Supercross Track was considered a Legacy project of the Toronto 2015 Pan Am and Para Pan Am Games. The aesthetics of concrete and galvanized tubing allowed the practical considerations of storage, ramp heights, retaining wall sections and shading to each be expressed as architectural elements within a single form.
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
Photo Credit: Scott Norsworthy
It was significant to the design that the Track transform into a “lantern”, a defined and transparent object during the night.The durable steel pipe armature allows a transparency and patterning to the object. The full complement of elements had to elevate the sport and present itself as an architectural sculpture in the landscape.