Hockey Australia Centre of Excellence, Perth, WA

The Hockey Australia Centre of Excellence, nestled in Perth’s Curtin University precinct, is set to become the premier facility for Australia’s national hockey teams. Building on over 40 years of service to the men’s and women’s teams, this redevelopment will deliver state-of-the-art facilities and foster a world-class environment for high-performance training. Modernising the Centre is crucial to sustaining Australia’s competitive edge on the international hockey stage.

The project involves constructing 2 primary buildings, a stadium/high performance building and an indoor hockey centre, alongside 4 outdoor hockey pitches. The scope also includes demolishing the existing stadium building and resurfacing the North Pitch, requiring careful staging of services.

The stadium building will include community and officials’ change rooms, first aid facilities, storage areas for clubs and Hockey WA, hospitality spaces and function rooms. Facilities for the Hockey Australia High Performance Program will encompass administration workspaces, national team change rooms, recovery areas, a gym and meeting rooms. It will also feature public amenities, a hockey stadium with 1,000 permanent undercover seats plus capacity for an additional 9,000 temporary seats during events, along with outside broadcast and match production capabilities.

The indoor building will provide community change rooms, a Sport Integrity Australia drug testing suite and a 2-court indoor hockey centre seating 200 spectators per pitch. It will also include public amenities, boardrooms and meeting rooms for administration use, as well as the Hockey Australia and Hockey WA administration centre.

Sustainable outcomes are integral to the project, with key design solutions including heat pumps for domestic hot water and recovery pool heating, effectively eliminating reliance on natural gas. Stormwater drainage will be diverted to a rainwater harvesting system for irrigation, promoting ecological responsibility. The project is progressing towards formal 5 Star Green Star certification.

Key objectives include the elimination of fossil fuels, water efficiency and reduced embodied and operational carbon. Additionally, the project will include a sustainable procurement risk review, appoint an independent commissioning agent and implement measures for onsite air quality and acoustic performance. Other considerations include building envelope integrity tests, climate change resilience, life cycle assessments, significant onsite energy generation, mixed-mode operation in selected areas and the avoidance of air conditioning in indoor courts.

The hydraulic design provides essential services, including hot water for showers, by leveraging sustainable technology such as heat pumps and storage tanks. This approach efficiently meets high demand and aligns with the project’s environmental objectives.

The pool hydraulics design provides efficient filtration treatment, along with heating and cooling for recovery pools utilised by Hockey Australia’s athletes as part of their high-performance training.

The fire protection systems are tailored to provide maximum safety for athletes, staff and visitors, critical in a high-traffic sports environment. These systems are designed to meet the demands of both daily usage and large event scenarios.

The sewerage design was a challenge due to the extensive site layout and limited depth of the sewer connection. The engineering addressed this by incorporating a centrally located sewage pump station between the stadium and indoor centre buildings. With a high discharge flow rate from the site and a limited outflow discharge to the site sewer connection, the design of the sewage pump station required careful consideration to create adequate sizing across a wide range of event modes, providing effective management during peak event usage.

The Hockey Australia Centre of Excellence project is poised to raise the bar for sports infrastructure in Australia. By providing top-tier facilities aligned with international standards, it supports athlete wellbeing, community connections and sustainable practices. Ultimately, the Centre is set to enhance the lives of athletes and the broader community, establishing Perth as the permanent home of hockey in Australia while fostering future generations of sports enthusiasts.

Image credit: Hunt Architects