Neil Campbell Rowing Centre

This project was selected as a Honor winner in ARCHITECT's 2024 Architecture & Interiors Awards, Architecture: Sports and Recreation category.

“Rowing centers often rely on cliches around the movement of the boat or the movement of the oar or something like that, but I feel like this one is unabashedly about the site and the horizon of the water. And it’s that relationship and the precision and the detailing that's so critical in rowing that you see in the resolution of the building.” –Juror John Frane

Sleek, linear, and minimal, the 5,600-square-foot Neil Campbell Rowing Centre in St. Catharines, Ontario, is a year-round training centre for athletes as well as a venue for multipurpose events and tournaments, fitting as it sits on a pond adjacent to the world-class Henley Rowing Course. Originally developed for the 2022 Canada Games, the center was designed by MJMA Architecture & Design with various passive measures — a biased overhanging roof for sun control, abundant glazing for natural lighting, and operable sliding doors for cross ventilation — to help it meet stringent Zero-Carbon Emissions and Net-Zero Energy benchmarks.

The centre’s structure starts with screw piles that extend down to the bedrock and support the concrete slab base of the building. Atop polished concrete floors, a cross-laminated timber core, containing facilities such as universal changing and washrooms, and a series of steel perimeter columns hold a mass timber composite ceiling plane and roof, which itself is topped by a ballasted photovoltaic array for onsite power generation. Meanwhile, the open spaces, which are fully accessible, contain a weight-lifting gym, lounge, and, of course, rowing ergometers.

This composition of concrete, wood, and glass at once creates a strikingly modern architectural statement and a box that seemingly dissolves into Martindale Pond, on which the centre is situated. Further dissolving the barrier between interior and exterior environments, the concrete floor and wood ceiling plane extend past the glass walls and end at the same exterior border, created by a band of gravel. Beyond this border, landscaping touches including patches of grass and shallow concrete steps that lead directly onto the pond.

PROJECT CREDITS:Project: Neil Campbell Rowing Centre
Location: St. Catharines, Ontario
Client/Owner: 2021 Canada Summer Games/Canadian Henley Rowing Corporation

Architect: MJMA Architecture & Design | Raimondo + Associates Architects IncConstruction Start Date: November 2020
Construction End Date: February 2022
Interior Designer: MJMA Architecture & Design
Mechanical Engineer: Smith + Andersen
Structural Engineer: Blackwell
Electrical Engineer: Smith + Andersen
Civil Engineer: Upper Canada Consultants
General Contractor: Aquicon
Landscape Architect: MJMA Architecture & Design
Lighting Designer: Smith + Andersen
Any other consultants, with their roles: Footprint (Sustainability)
Size in Square Feet: 5,600 sf
Cost: $7,200,000

MATERIALS AND SOURCES:Adhesives, Coatings and Sealants: Timber Sealer by Sansin, Whitewash finish
Cabinets: Archmill Millwork
Concrete: Stubbe’s Precast
Exterior Wall Systems: Schuco (Curtain Walls), Aluminum fascia by SM Cladding (Siding)
Flooring: Regupol 'AktivPro' (Fitness Centre Flooring), Daltile Unglazed Porcelain Mosaic (Locker/Shower)
HVAC: Daikin
Insulation: Roxul Cavityrock
Lighting Control Systems: Lutron
Lighting: Medgar Lighting
Photovoltaics or other Renewables: LG Electronics supplied by Alectra
Roofing: IKO installed by Pollard
Structural System: Nordic Structures Glulam and CLT. Timmerman Timberworks
Windows and Doors: Schuco (Windows), AMG

Photography by Scott NorsworthyGraphics by MJMA Architecture & Design