The City of Surrey is the second largest urban centre outside of Vancouver in the province of British Columbia. NLS was retained to develop the city’s second covered youth park that features a community performance space, court games, ample spectator edges, a seperate bowl complex, and large open urban plaza dedicated to skateboarding.
Located at the city’s millenium park – this site features over 100 acres of active and passive recreation space for agri-fair, flea markets, museum/archives, recreation centre, ice rinks, and amphitheatre/performance centre. We were asked to develop a significant public space at the main entry to the Fair Grounds, adjacent to a landmark recreation centre, and provincial highway. Working with our multi-disciplinary team, we developed a solution that provides for strong access points, site safety for users after dark, thoughtful and playful LED lighting effects within the roof structure to simulate off – season use of the facility, and public interest. As well – the facility needed to be ‘forward-thinking’ but still respect an agricultural heritage of the site. The design solution utilized wood/heavy timber construction for the roof top canopy in a very rectilinear form that provides an ‘edgy’ vertical element, that compliments the hard/sculptural lines of the skate plaza terrain.