L'Espace Philippe Boucher Ice Rink

To extend their winter skating season, the Municipalité de Saint-Apollinaire challenged this project team to design and build a canopy to cover their outdoor ice rink—and to use as much wood as possible. The resulting structure, a beautiful wood-steel hybrid canopy, seemingly floats over the ice sheet below.

The facility met the community’s aesthetic and budget goals by combining 98-foot-long hybrid wood-steel trusses, glue-laminated (glulam) beams and glue-laminated decking (GLT) with beautiful round glulam columns. The sleek roof line was made possible by the hybrid truss configuration, but it’s the slender round columns that help create the illusion of a suspended canopy.

The covered structure protects the ice from November through March, then the space is used for pickleball and basketball. Designers kept durability in mind; all mass timber elements were factory-treated to protect the wood from moisture and UV degradation, and the large roof overhang protects both the glulam columns and the skaters below. Wood was a good choice for this outdoor application; the community continues to show their appreciation for the beautiful structure.