The Bear Creek Athletics Centre is a world-class facility that brings together sport, recreation, and community events. The stadium, designed with multiple access points, integrates seamlessly with the surrounding park, invites year-round use, and strengthens Surrey’s position as a regional hub for premier soccer, football, and track and field.

The facility features a grandstand with seating for 2,200 spectators that incorporates repurposed structural wood materials and is partially sheltered by an expressive canopy structure composed of a GLT roof supported by glulam beams. These beams are supported by balanced cantilever steel beams on vertical cantilever steel columns above the grandstand structure below.

Material selection was central to the project’s success and longevity. Concrete forms the durable and stable foundation and base. Steel provides the backbone of the cantilever framing, offering strength, efficiency, and resistance to deformation. Wood serves as the lightweight roof structure and finish material, contributing aesthetic value, and supporting sustainability goals. In conjunction with new supply, reclaimed wood is used selectively throughout the structure, including the decking across the building and glulams at lower levels. The back-of-house programming features a reclaimed GLT roof on reclaimed glulam beams supported by concrete and CMU walls.

In addition to the grandstand, the facility includes changerooms and public washrooms beneath the seating, an upgraded track aligned with international standards, and plaza areas for concessions and ticketing. The Bear Creek Stadium was designed with accessibility and adaptability in mind, featuring extra-wide passageways, accessible washrooms, universal change rooms with accessible showers, and an elevator serving the upper grandstand levels.

The stadium structure was completed in 2024, with the upgraded track finished in May 2025 and the facility fully opening to the public in summer 2025.

The stadium’s structural solution follows the principle “right material in the right place”: a concrete base ensures durability, stability, and counterweight; steel cantilevers deliver strength with minimal weight and creep; and wood in secondary elements enhances aesthetics, deters bird perching, and furthers sustainability.

During schematic design, the team challenged itself to incorporate reclaimed materials to reduce embodied carbon. Close coordination led them to identify a sourcing opportunity, confirm available volumes, and review viability of reclaimed Douglas Fir glulam, with the majority originating from the demolition of a Toys R Us building in Surrey from the 1980s. A structural condition review and report by Fast + Epp outlining observations and recommendations was prepared for the client, who proceeded with the material.

A conservative approach assumed No. 2 grade Douglas Fir, recognizing the variability of reclaimed wood. Structural testing carried out at Fast + Epp’s Concept Lab validated strength and stiffness assumptions. The timber, noted for its stability due to seasoned moisture content, was ultimately used as decking across the project.

Construction required careful coordination due to building code review of combustible materials, integrate exposed timber with building systems, manage tight site logistics between the water park and running track, and sequence multiple skilled trades within the hybrid structure.

Hybrid materials form an expressive, efficient structure that puts the right material in the right place to balance performance and cost. The result is a striking 1,000 sqm exposed wood canopy crafted from timber in its third life. By repurposing wood from a tree harvested roughly 60 years ago, the project significantly reduces embodied carbon while celebrating durability, sustainability, and design.