FRAMED BY THE RHYTHM OF THE STRUCTURE

Opened in 2021, the Churchill Meadows Community Centre features a 25-metre, six-lane pool and therapeutic pool; a triple gymnasium; a multipurpose room, including a teaching kitchen and an active living studio. It was designed for all ages and abilities, offering a variety of recreational activities and neighbourhood amenities for year-round use. The building was designed by Toronto based MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects.

The project is situated within a rapidly growing neighbourhood in Mississauga, a suburban city immediately west of Toronto. It converts a 20-hectare agricultural field into richly textured parkland, with a community recreation centre as its focus. This park connects to an existing multi-use trail system, making it a destination in the network. Together building and park comprise a vital hub for leisure, sport, and recreation – embodying the City of Mississauga’s commitment to advancing the wellbeing of its communities, individuals, and the environment. The 6,900 m² centre appears to rest on the landscape. On approach, the crystalline exterior reveals a spacious interior topped by an open structure of massive, wood glulam beams that act as barriers to light and sound. The interior spaces are arranged into two bars running the length of the building: the east holds the changerooms, with a teaching kitchen, multi-purpose, and fitness rooms on the floor above; on the west, a wider bar houses the triple gymnasium and aquatics hall with lap and leisure pools.

Location Mississauga ON, Canada

Client / operator

City of Mississauga

Architect MJMA Architecture & Design

Principal designer

Robert Allen

MJMA Architecture & Design

Author MJMA Photos

Nic Lehoux

Tom Ridout

Official opening

September 2021

Contruction costs

USD 51 million (EUR 47.3 million)

The centre’s simple yet dynamic form signals its purpose as a neighbourhood landmark for social gathering and healthful activity. The building is set diagonally, with its four elevations facing each cardinal direction. It acts as an orientation device, organizing the amenities within the park – playing fields and courts are aligned with the building for optimal solar orientation.

The approach to site planning saw the building as a head end to park servicing for single point of control; incorporating park office, outdoor washrooms, water service, electrical service, overall environmental graphics and integrated shade structures all within the building. This helped to avoid duplication of services, shade structures, signage systems, and justified the proximity of park elements to the building which ultimately provides better public space; an outcome that is often lacking in projects with separate building and park designs.

The park provides a series of leisure and fitness spaces, including multiple soccer fields and basketball courts, spread across a landscape of gently rolling hills made from soil reclaimed during building excavation – these offer elevated seating to spectators. A measured trail loop, with fitness stations and interpretive signage emphasizing the natural heritage and settlement history of the area, runs around the perimeter of the park. It loosely connects all the park programs and passes by environmental stewardship zones, a protected wetland, and stormwater management pond.

In an aquatic centre environment, timber outperforms steel in the corrosive air and does not require extensive high-performance paint coatings for protection. When embodied carbon and other factors are considered, mass timber offers the clearest path toward achieving net-zero energy and zero-carbon building benchmarks. The innovative mass timber structure is also biophilic: from all major spaces, the view is through a forest of glulam columns into the park spaces, reinforcing visitors’ connection to nature. The centre offers a minimum of 25 % energy savings relative to other buildings of this typology, with glazing used strategically to lower the window to wall ratio, the use of high efficiency windows, built up wall assemblies, and high use of insulation and thermal spacers through most thermal bridging connections.

Indoor environmental quality was an important factor in the design of the building. Lighting was designed not only to reduce energy consumption but provide a pleasant quality of light for occupants. The aluminum screen is integral to the

A feeling of openness, maintained via thoughtful visual and physical connections, informs the approach to the design, and is made evident in the central lobby. As soon as visitors enter through the space, there is a feeling of having stepped into the park, with expansive views to the outdoors framed by the rhythm of the mass timber structure. This is accomplished by strategically placing the glulam timber columns to mediate the linking of inside-to-outside along the full length of the park side of the building. Visitors inside the building, whether in the pools, gymnasium, or lobby, are always able to look out through a forest of glulam columns to the park space. The simple wood structure with almost no visible bracing members also adds an elegant verticality.

overall design and daylighting control strategy and mitigates solar heat gain, filtering sunlight similar to a tree canopy. Energy-efficient light fixtures are also equipped with occupancy sensors that shut off automatically when space is unoccupied or dim using daylight sensors when there is sufficient natural daylight.

The project was designed with an on-site storm water management system, including underground infiltration galleries, vegetated drainage channels, and a storm water detention pond. Rainfall is conveyed across the site, in a north and/ or westerly direction through the system and outlets into an existing drainage channel.

The existing wetland on site was used as an organizing feature of the design involving ecohydrology interpretations. Site soil excavations were redistributed on the site, instead of being trucked away, in the form of grassy hillocks around the edges of the fields.

Location

Neumarkt i.d. Opf., Germany

Client / Operator

Stadtwerke Neumarkt i.d. OPf.

Freizeit & Leben KU

Architects

Diezinger Architekten GmbH

85072 Eichstädt, Germany www.diezingerarchitekten.de

Author

DI Architekt BDA Andreas Weiderer

Diezinger Architekten

Tiles

Agrob Buchtal

Photos

Stefan Müller-Naumann

Official opening

November 2021

Contruction costs

EUR 51.8 million