©PNE

At Hastings Park, the newly completed Freedom Mobile Arch is giving Vancouver a new kind of cultural landmark: a covered outdoor venue designed for concerts, festivals and public gatherings of up to 10,000 people. Completed in June, and host to the city’s FIFA Fan Festival, the amphitheatre is defined by a sweeping mass-timber roof that shelters audiences while preserving the feeling of being outdoors. It’s a civic room that frames the sky and North Shore mountains. For Venelin Kokalov of Revery Architecture, who designed this building, the finished venue closely reflects their original vision, but with one important difference: the atmosphere can now be felt. The amphitheatre’s defining gesture is its roof: a starburst mass-timber canopy spanning 105 metres, arcs rising 25 metres high. Comprising 60 arches arranged in six vaulted segments, it has the drama of a landmark, with the softness of a natural material.