Gateway Niagara Reception Centre: A Successful Integration of Wood and Engineered Wood Products in Non-Residential Construction

摘要

The Gateway Niagara Reception Centre in Grimsby, Ontario is a 2500 m~2 off-highway tourist facility housing a variety of restaurants and information kiosks for tourists visiting the Niagara Peninsula from Toronto. The successful integration of many different structural wood products created an efficient and aesthetically pleasing structural system. The design intent was to create a warm and inviting common area in which travellers could relax and eat while gathering local tourism information. Aside from eight reinforced concrete columns at the core of the building, the superstructure is constructed entirely from wood and engineered wood components, a significant change from the usual North American approach of using structural steel in such applications. The columns support a 10m high, octagonal Douglas-Fir glulam frame. Exterior regions of the building are stabilized with plywood diaphragms connected to wood shear walls. The octagonal glulam frame is capped with a 16m span cupola clad with 38mm wood decking. This unit was assembled and decked entirely on the ground, then lifted into place. A lower level of glulam and wood deck skirts the central core to frame vestibule and restaurant areas that are open to the central core. At the lower roof level, retail and other restaurant space is framed with 13m span light wood trusses which span to the outer wood shear walls and integrate a large number of geometric features of the building that are not normally included in such prefabricated components.