Central Park Club Rooms Upgrade

Central Park in Stawell is the Historic location of the Annual Stawell Gift Footrace, which draws athletes from across the globe.

The Stawell Gift is Australia's oldest and richest short-distance handicap footrace, held annually over the Easter long weekend at Central Park. The Clubrooms Pavilion is the focus of the annual gift and is also used regularly for AFL, Netball and Cricket clubs to change and socialise. 

The existing building was community built in the early 1970s, when changeroom standards were quite different to today. The challenge was to update this building into a modern female friendly facility to support the wide range of sporting clubs now using the site, as well as the annual gift.

The budget for these works was extremely tight, and NGSC emphasized to us the need to deliver robust facilities without exceeding the budgetary requirements. There were also the issues of NCC Compliance which were complex given the origins of the building. Our building surveyors, Floreancig Smith, identified a clever fire engineering solution early in the project to allow the compliance to be upgraded economically.

A lift was also required, and this created further issues with creating the required pit into the unusual subgrade which included an underground stream.

Part of the design solution for the extension was to create a huge billboard like façade which could incorporate a mural celebrating the history and future aspirations of the area, and further research was carried out to incorporate the best surface for the artists to work with.