Client: US Ski Association & Fenway Park Management
Date: February 2016
Location: Fenway Park, Boston
Project Type: Architectural, Engineering, Scenic
Jeremy Thom Role: Production Designer - Atomic Design
Since the recent introduction of Big Air as a competitive Olympic sport there have been more events promoted with jumps built in non-mountain venues with capacity for large audiences. This project in Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, had both the ski jump and a music stage for this televised event, which ran over a four day period. The structure needed to provide jump geometry suitable for both skiing and snowboarding, and for both men's and women's events. The competition was for preliminary Olympic qualification and was overseen by the Federation International de Ski.
In association with Mike Zorena, who's company Consultanzee built this ski jump, I designed a structure which could be built faster, more efficiently and with fewer crew than previous Big Air jumps. The geometry of the structure and it's upper snow surface was designed by Snow Park Technologies to fit the exact angles of the diagonal patterns of Layher system scaffolding, to remove the need for any customization to the structural elements.
The surface onto which snow was to be laid was a newly designed interlocking decking system with lateral ribs to prevent snow slippage. The decks were located onto the scaffold diagonals, made load-bearing with the addition of structural lumber supports. A custom elevator was designed to fit within the scaffold system to take competitors to the start deck 140' above the field.
(Video credits: 309 Productions, Red Sox Productions, Kellan Reck, Stacey Lamboni & Andrew Fewsmith