The newly opened Sam Centre in Calgary offers a year-round immersive experience that brings the ‘world of the Calgary Stampede’ – past, present and future – to life through technology, story-making and Western hospitality.

Designed by Diamond Schmitt, with associate architect Formed Alliance Architecture Studio (FAAS), Sam Centre expands on the Stampede’s culture of building community by bringing together diverse people from Southern Alberta, across North America, and around the world that has marked its culture from the inaugural gathering in 1912.

Drawing on historical Stampede structures and vernacular agricultural buildings and barns, the newly opened Sam Centre is a linear volume characterized by a large and expressive, horizontal pitched roof. Creating large overhanging soffits, the roof evokes the welcoming verandahs of traditional Alberta architecture.

The structure uses a repetitive hybrid steel frame with mass timber beams, echoing vernacular agricultural buildings. Exposed mass timber adds warmth to the interior, while horizontal terracotta panels in Stampede red clad the exterior, offering a modern yet durable nod to traditional barn boards. Sam Centre’s design and programming seamlessly blend to create an engaging, multifaceted visitor experience.

Comprised of 30,000 sf of space on one level, Sam Centre is a flexible platform for sharing the Stampede experience through programmatic spaces presenting an immersive multimedia showcase, exhibitions, and public programs supported by specialized artifact and archival collection spaces, giving visitors a visceral taste of the live Stampede experience.

“We have designed a welcoming facility that captures the rich Western culture and heritage celebrated by the Stampede and encompasses its core values of community,” says Peggy Theodore, principal at Diamond Schmitt. “We are excited to see how our design will facilitate telling Stampede stories, making a place of gathering—supporting the diversity of the individuals who for over more than a century have made the Stampede what it is today.”