Thunderbird Centre Resort: Transforming a Legacy of Olympic burden

Author

• Dustin Froese

Files

Date of Award

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/22976

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Rights

NDSU Policy 190.6.2

URI

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Abstract

In the wake of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, specialized sporting facilities such as the Whistler Sliding Center have become unused mementos that are expensive to maintain and are a burden to the local community. Transforming the Whistler Sliding Center into Thunderbird Centre is a step towards establishing a sustainable Olympic legacy that can become a model for the specialized sporting facilities of future Olympic Games. Thunderbird Centre is a resort development that has been master planned to preserve the spirit of the original sliding center. Master Plan elements include intimate mountain lodging, adventure tourism activities in the backcountry, expansive public parks and many more amenities. The sliding track itself will host an ornamentally planted bioswale that naturally treats the Centre’s water runoff, effectively integrating the foreign concrete track into the local ecosystem. Thunderbird Centre’s flagship is a public health facility located in the final curve of the track, which has been named “Thunderbird”. The fitness facility (which is the focal point of this thesis project) embodies the Olympic ideals of sport, it is influenced by the surrounding natural environment and it addresses the needs of the community in order to create a valuable community asset from an obsolete sporting facility.

Recommended Citation

Froese, Dustin, "Thunderbird Centre Resort: Transforming a Legacy of Olympic burden" (2013). Architecture Theses. 472.
https://digitalcommons.ndsu.edu/architecture-theses/472