Completion Date: 2007
Square Footage: 156,000

The design for the Holly Community Centre integrates 150,000 square feet of recreation and community space into the mature vegetation of a suburban park in Barrie’s southern district.

Internally, the large programmatic elements of two hockey arenas, a recreational natatorium, gymnasium and fitness club are organized around an L-shaped corridor where a high degree of transparency allows a series of animated spatial interrelations between the various program spaces and the site. 

Smaller and more transparent spaces such as a preschool and public meeting rooms are wrapped around the volume of the arenas, breaking down the building’s overall scale and creating a series of intimate relationships between these spaces and the surrounding oak, maple and walnut trees. The light-filled gymnasium and aquatics spaces face onto the main street and can be viewed through large expanses of clerestory glazing.