News

Boston Sports Institute, Wellesley, Massachusetts January 1, 2020

Boston Sports Institute, a 130,000-square-foot multiuse recreation facility, is located in a suburb of MetroWest Boston. It houses two hockey ice arenas, a synthetic turf field, track, pool (used for Olympics trials in 2012), warm-up pool, sports rehabilitation area and strength training space.

The project presented challenges including an increased condensation risk from high interior relative humidity levels of the pools (60%) and ice rinks (48%), which is minimized via thermal insulation.

To address the operation challenge of multiple, high-energy demand environments, multiple energy conservation measures were incorporated in the building. First, thermal energy is reclaimed from the ice rinks to heat the pools via loop systems with heat exchangers and circulation pumps. Second, LED lighting and high-efficiency water heaters are used for ice resurfacing, with an ammonia refrigeration system. Third, the facility’s 100,000-square-foot roof and electrical infrastructure is prepared for a 900kW photovoltaic array.

Additionally, to meet functional and aesthetic project goals, an exterior wall assembly consisting of a tri-color pattern of insulated metal panels (IMPs) provides weather enclosure, insulation, and an air and vapor barrier. The building structure was built with a metal building system, supplied by Metallic Building Co. The entire building is new; the shell of the pool used for Olympic trials was shipped to the site, and an infrastructure was built around it.

Kevin Provencher, AIA, LEED AP, director of architecture at Dacon Corp., design-builder for the project, says, “Both ice rinks and natatoriums have high moisture loads, but the ice rinks’ temperature will be maintained at 55 F while the pools are at 82 F. [The IMPs are] an ideal wall system for a facility with demanding environmental needs.”

Barnes Buildings and Management Group Inc. installed the metal building system and the IMPs. The project utilized 58,000 square feet of Metl-Span’s IMPs in Smoke Gray, Polar White and Sandstone.

Tim Allison, vice president of project management at Barnes, says, “We have a mixture of panel types in multiple colors that run in two orientations. When we have just one type of panel and one color, we simply unwrap the bundle and install continuously. With multiple colors, you must spread out bundles so we can access the panels in the order needed. With this site, we didn’t have much room, so it was tricky. We paid close attention to the drawings and details to ensure correct installation.”

The sports and rec center has several notable details. It has a parapet on the gable end of the building above the pool that starts low at the eaves and grows to 3 feet at the peak to hide rooftop equipment. Also, there’s an accent band near the top of the building, made with a single-skin metal panel that continues horizontally from the windows. To install it, Barnes used Metl-Span’s 7.2 Rib panels.

The roofing for more than 75% of the building is a double-lock standing seam roof system in Galvalume, supplied by Metallic Building. The roofing above the pool consists of IMPs in Galvalume, Metl- Span’s CFR system. It starts approximately 35 feet from the roof peak, so the top section of roofing is standing seam. At the transition to where the IMPs are above the pool, the roofline drops 1 foot. The interior skin on the roofing and wall IMPs in the pool area are coated with Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings’ Flurothane IV, a finish formulated to withstand corrosive environments.

Article from Metal Construction News
https://www.metalconstructionnews.com/projects/boston-sports-institute-wellesley-massachusetts