Cockburn ARC, Perth, WA

The City of Cockburn partnered with the Fremantle Dockers Football Club, State and Federal Governments to deliver the Cockburn Regional Physical Activity and Education Centre (Cockburn ARC), the largest facility of its kind ever undertaken in Western Australia. The project spans 3 levels with a total floor area of 32,000 m².

NDY was commissioned by the City of Cockburn to assist in developing their new regional aquatic and education centre. As part of the commission NDY developed a custom sustainability strategy, which aligned with the Council policy objectives in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from renewables on all new building projects.

The new activity centre features a strength and conditioning gym, multipurpose training spaces, indoor stadium and courts. The aquatic facilities includes an eight lane lap pool, nine lane outdoor pool, water slides, learn to swim space, spa and steam room. The centre includes spaces for throwing sports, hydrotherapy and recovery pools, consultation rooms, environmental simulation laboratories and training facilities, seminar rooms and athlete amenities.

The centre is designed to accommodate training, testing, recovery and associated support services for high performance athletes, coaches and support staff. The new centre will also be the training ground and headquarters for the Fremantle Dockers Football Club.

Key initiatives include:

• Geothermal pool heating servicing 100% of heating requirements for the 50m outdoor and 25m indoor pools
• Approximately 1 MW solar photovoltaic system to offset electrical demand taken from the grid
• Sub-metering of all significant energy and water use component
• Improvement on section J envelope requirements
• An environmental GHG life cycle assessment, with initiatives for lowering embodied carbon implemented
• Registration with the WA WaterCorp Waterwise Aquatic Centre Program.