Olympic Stadium Roof Reuse, Montreal

Organized by the Montreal Olympic Park, the competition invites professionals and students to create concepts for recycling roofing materials from the iconic 1976 stadium, which is slated to receive a new roof as part of a CAN$870 million renovation.

The call for concepts aims to explore future “spaces, facilities and processes” for the massive roof structure, which has more than 12km of steel cables but has more than 20,000 tears and needs to be replaced to allow the stadium to be used safely all year round. .

Held almost 50 years after Roger Taillibert Square, which first opened for the 1976 Summer Olympics, the main objectives of the competition include identifying “bold” collective decisions to adopt “circular architecture to accelerate the socio-ecological transition”.

According to the brief: “What can be done with the hundreds of tons of materials when the current roof of the Olympic Stadium in Montreal is dismantled? Can we solve the problem of reusing this Olympic hill, being part of a circular architectural approach, while improving the quality of life of citizens affected by climate change?

“The international design and architecture community, both students and professionals, are invited to propose spaces, objects and processes that will be an important legacy for our city and the province of Quebec.

“The purpose of this competition is to provide the Olympic Park with ideas on the possibilities of reusing the materials of the roof of the Olympic Stadium.”

Montreal is the most populous city in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. The Montreal Olympic Stadium is a prominent multi-purpose venue with a 165 m tall support structure with a 45° slope, known as the Montreal Tower.

The stadium has a roof that was installed in 1998, but is now damaged in several places, making it unsafe to use the stadium during periods of heavy snow and ice accumulation.

The final ideas competition aimed to find solutions to reuse, recycle and restore most of the roof's components, which included 12 km of steel cables, 42,000 m² of material membranes and 434 connecting fittings.

Judges include Rami Bebawi, architect and co-founder of KANVA, which recently completed a major renovation of the adjacent Biodome Science Museum; Stephanie Cardinal, architect and vice president of Humà Architecture; and Yang Gao, a designer and professor at the University of Quebec at the University of Montreal.

Four professional winners, to be announced this summer, will each receive a CAN$15,000 prize. Winners in the four student categories will each receive a CAN$5,000 prize.