West Coast Eagles Training Facility

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

  • Typologies

    Training Facilities

  • Building Activities

    Australian Football

  • Services

    Architecture

  • Completion

    2018

One of two West Australian AFL teams, the West Coast Eagles identified it needed a new training and administration facility to keep up its sustained on-field and off-field success and remain as one of the nation’s premier sporting franchises.

CHALLENGE. The West Coast Eagles’ training facility had been expanding in an adhoc manner, but facilities were out of date and the site was too small to accommodate the Club’s continued growth. The Club recognised that to compete it needed to keep pace with the new breed of training facilities developing across Australia. The solution was a move to a new site in South East Perth, and develop a state of the art facility, accommodating a myriad of departments, all within an extremely tight footprint. The new site was within a residential area, so the facilities also needed to be sympathetic to the surroundings and be accessible to the local community.

INNOVATION. The design solution was the development of a three storey building but with only a single storey at the front, with the other levels folding into the surrounding landscape.

The facility has also been designed to allow maximum community use and interaction with the Club. The community has access to all the precinct’s public spaces, including one of the two ovals, running track, retail store and café. Visitors can see the team’s training areas, and can overlook the internal training field from the entry lobby. There is a function room and business lounge available for community hire, which also provides additional revenue for the club. The building will also house The Wirrpanda Foundation, an organisation which works to improve the quality of life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians through education, employment, justice and sport.

The individual room design of the training facility has been carefully thought out to maximize interactions between players and trainers. State-of- the-art facilities include a double height gym, a large indoor practice field to accommodate training in bad weather or extreme heat, pools with rehabilitation facilities, an altitude room and climbing wall.  The design is also flexible enough to cater for the long term needs of the club including the addition of a women’s team in the near future.

IMPACT. The new West Coast Eagles facility is intended to not only be the benchmark in the AFL, but around the world, reflecting the West Coast Eagles’ standing in the Australian Football League.

The new facility will also bring all departments together, creating a unified home for West Coast Eagles football and administration.

It will also be an asset to be widely used by the community. It will create an enhanced precinct environment with improvements to recreation areas, streetscape, accessibility and parking.

Project Team
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Taryn McQueen