Snow Safety Shapes Vancouver’s New Timber Amphitheatre Roof

Vancouver’s new PNE Amphitheatre, officially named the Freedom Mobile Arch, is nearing completion with a roof design that puts both architecture and long-term operations under scrutiny. The $183 million venue will include a 344-foot timber arch roof over a 10,000-seat open-air entertainment space, making it one of the longest timber arch roofs of its kind.

Designed by Revery Architecture, the roof uses 60 interlaced timber arches arranged into six barrel vaults in a starburst layout. The design gives the venue a clear visual identity, but it also creates a complex roofing challenge. For owners, contractors, and design teams, the key issue is not just how the roof looks, but how it performs in Vancouver’s changing weather.

While Vancouver is not usually seen as a heavy-snow market, the city has averaged 15.2 inches of snow annually over the past decade. On a roof of this scale, even moderate accumulation can become a safety and operations concern if snow slides unpredictably toward walkways, public areas, entrances, or roof edges.

That made snow retention part of the design brief early in the process. Rather than treating it as a late-stage roofing accessory, the project team had to consider how snow movement would be managed across a large timber structure with an unusual geometry.

Coordinating Roof Design, Snow Retention, and Venue Operations

The snow retention plan brought together several project partners, including Fast + Epp, RWDI, EllisDon, Bothwell-Accurate, Engineered Architecturals LTD, Rocky Mountain Snow Guards, and S-5!. Their task was to support roof safety without disrupting the architectural profile of the amphitheatre.

The selected solution uses a Single-Ply ColorGard Bar-Style Snow Guard System, arranged across the roof to help control snow movement. Engineered Architecturals recommended the system because its low-profile metal components could be integrated into the roof without drawing attention away from the timber structure.

Attachment was a major part of the specification. Rocky Mountain Snow Guards supplied 2,475 Single Ply Baseplates, 2,475 ColorGard 2.0/X-Gard Adapters, and aluminum tubing for ferrules to create fastening pathways through insulation and roof build-up materials. Engineered Architecturals sourced ColorGard Bars and VersaClips from S-5!, while Bothwell-Accurate coordinated installation. The ColorGard Bars were finished in Benjamin Moore’s Moonshine, a neutral OC-56 shade selected to align with the roof’s appearance.

The Freedom Mobile Arch roof is built primarily from Douglas fir glulam and spruce-pine-fir cross-laminated timber, placing it within the wider shift toward mass timber in public and commercial construction. The roof also incorporates acoustic and sound-containment features for events, along with rainwater collection to support landscaping and runoff management.

Those added functions increase the need for coordination across disciplines. The snow retention system had to work with varying insulation depths, including a transition area at the rear of the amphitheatre that added installation complexity. The baseplate approach helped the team manage those roof assembly conditions while keeping the system relatively low profile.

For developers, venue owners, and construction teams, the project offers a practical takeaway: distinctive roof architecture can support brand value and user experience, but only when environmental loads, maintenance, and public safety are considered early. At the Freedom Mobile Arch, snow retention will not be the feature most visitors notice, but it will play a direct role in how safely and reliably the venue operates through the year.