More than just an academic centre, the LaTrobe Sports Park is a community destination that is active day and night, on weekdays, and weekends.
It meets the demands of Community Sport and contributes to the student experience by addressing health and well-being and cohort experience through team sport.
Sports administration is centrally located and facilitates pedagogical experience through the alignment of high-performance athlete management and data-driven performance assessment.
Elite sport and recreational participation are visible with the central hub encouraging the natural collisions and cross-pollination that bring about discovery and inspiration.
The key concept in this design by architects Warren and Mahoney in collaboration with MJMA was to concentrate maximum activity, encouraging students, athletes, academics, sports administrators, and local community sporting clubs to come together, concentrating their energy, talent, and experience in one vibrant, efficient, centralized hub.
State-of-the-art sports science technology, advanced physiology, and biomechanics labs were integrated seamlessly into the design.
The outdoor football field runs right into the building.
Outdoor plazas are the axial link to the Agora – the social heart of the campus – and the centralized transportation interchange integrates the sports park with the broader campus that was previously annexed by Kingsbury drive.
The massing of the building addresses patron and employee experience from the canopy that envelops, protects, and collects to the North and accommodates the technical height and mass demands of the Court environment.
The double-height teaching and tenancies spaces are encapsulated within an aligned mass of the court structure, enabling views both into the court environment and out the west overlooking the external sports fields, Darebin Creek, and to the CBD beyond.
The testing and analysis of Biomech and Strength and conditioning labs address the external synthetic soccer pitch and the massing ties foyer, staff facilities, café, amenities, bicycle storage, and plant in a homogenous wrapped ribbon of façade.
The design team achieved a 6 Star Green Star Design and As-Built rating for sustainable building practice.
That puts the project in a class of its own.
In fact, it is a showcase for other projects of this type and scale such as shopping centres and industrial buildings.
The sustainability features include:
- high-performance façade and roof
- natural ventilation strategy to the courts
- high-efficiency services systems
- water storage
- 500kW PV array that generates a surplus of renewable energy
The master plan allows for expansion of facilities and sporting codes over time and had been designed to limit disruption and future capital expense and to ensure that additions can be efficiently integrated with the current facilities.
The monetary, health, and wellbeing value of this Warren and Mahoney and MJMA design collaboration is evident in the successful co-location and accommodation of the functions of academia, sport management, community sport, and elite sport within this project.
This is a facility that will positively contribute to the community and university life today, tomorrow, and over the horizon.
Project Details
Project Size – 11,500 m2
Completion Date – 2020
Project Team
Architecture
Warren and Mahoney
Warren and Mahoney is an award-winning and insight-led multidisciplinary architectural practice with more than 300 staff working from several locations within Australia and New Zealand.
MJMA
Located in Toronto, MJMA is known for its innovation and leadership in the advancement and definition of the community centre project type. The firm designs a large international portfolio of sport, recreation, community, and academic work.
Photography
Derek Swalwell
Derek is an architectural and editorial photographer from Melbourne, Australia. His name is synonymous with the photographic representation of the architectural landscape in Australia and beyond.
Photo Gallery
Click on a thumbnail image to enlarge.
Design © 2022 Warren and Mahoney; MJMA. All Rights Reserved.| Images © 2022 Derek Swalwell. All Rights Reserved.
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