Ontario’s Celebration Zone Pavilion

Optimizing a Temporary Special Structure

How do you make a striking exhibition area that is easy to erect, fun to experience, and structurally safe? You make it inflatable.

One of the most distinctive features of the 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games in Ontario was the Celebration Zone, a waterfront exhibition area for live music, ziplining and culinary tastings. It comprised a series of inflatable pavilions made of premium quality, fire-retardant composite textiles selected for their durability, exceptional strength and dimensional stability.

We provided structural analysis, form-finding and foundation design, collaborating with Hariri Pontarini Architects, Blackwell Structural Engineers & Tectoniks.

Highlights

• Structural and pneumatics analyses were performed at multiple scales to guide the design process.
• Anchoring systems were a critical part of the overall safety for the design.
• The foundation consists of large ground penetrating screws to resist lateral and uplift forces.