Decorative Concrete Brings Hockey Imagery to Life at Boston Bruins Practice Facility

When the Warrior Ice Arena in Boston was built, the architect wanted to bring the imagery of hockey from the interior to the exterior of the complex. With a landmark 68-foot-high hockey stick, the new 75,000-square-foot practice complex of the Boston Bruins hockey team includes an ice rink with seating for 660 fans, a lobby featuring displays of Bruins accomplishments, a modern locker suite, and team lounge and expansive training and weight rooms. Aggregate Industries US (AIUS), a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim Ltd., designed and developed the product that allowed the vision to come to life.

To achieve the aesthetic and LEED-certification goals of the project, AIUS created custom-designed mixes of its Artevia brand of decorative concretes that contained unique colors, aggregates and textures, as well as treatments to reduce the urban heat island effect. The Warrior Ice Arena hardscape was awarded the Scofield Decorative Concrete Award during the 2017 World of Concrete show in Las Vegas, Nevada for its creative and sustainable sidewalks and courtyards.

“We’re proud to have played a part of this project which, for Boston, is closely tied to our passion for sports,” said René Marais, Ready Mix sales manager for the Northeast Region of AIUS. “The hockey imagery concepts for the arena’s main entrance were very detailed and creative. For example, the curvature lines by the hockey stick reflect the lines a player makes when he cuts hard on the ice, and the additional exposed white stones illustrate ice shavings kicked over by the skating blade.”

To achieve the design goals for the hardscape, AIUS developed Artevia Color and Artevia Exposed samples with white and gray cement. The specialized concrete mix incorporated an integral coloring admixture from L. M. Scofield Company to create vibrant solar-reflective colors that conform to LEED 2009 requirements for reducing the urban heat island effect. This cool pavement technology helps keep concrete temperatures lower and provides a high solar reflective index value that qualifies the arena for a credit under the sustainable sites section of LEED.

AIUS also collaborated with Massachusetts-based Triad Associates, Inc. to produce mockup panels to ensure alignment with the design the customer intended. Due to uniform aesthetics and consistency, the finished decorative hardscape included Artevia Color and Artevia Exposed aggregate concretes, which combined design flexibility and strong visual appeal with low maintenance and durability. The Artevia Color concrete, with onyx black and custom gray alternating strips, was placed at street level, while the Artevia Exposed concrete, with colored stones and glass, was used for the elevated 2,000-square-foot courtyard.

“The vibrant color and textured effects of our Artevia concrete enabled the architects to create visually stimulating and architecturally exceptional hardscape that is built to last,” commented Marais. “All this landscaping creativity helps make the Warrior Ice Arena a unique, desirable, and a pleasant place to visit and watch Boston Bruins hockey.”