Sam Kerr Football Centre
Located in a suburb of Queens Park, 12km south of Perth and nestled within a tract of remnant bushland, is Western Australia’s new State Football Centre.
The project’s bushland setting required an environmentally sensitive and highly technical design response. Our careful master-planning integrates high performance training facilities with opportunities for community recreation and improves the site’s environmental quality to support native flora and fauna. This delivers a key community asset for local residents.
2024 Nominee for Public Architecture Award, Australian Institute of Architects, WA Chapter
Client
Department of Finance, on behalf of Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries (DLGSC) and Football West
Location
Queens Park, WA
Construction Value
$50.8m
Completed
2023
Carabiner Team
Project Director: David Karotkin
Project Leader and Architect: Pete Spence
Includes:
Administration and open plan working areas
State of the art training and game day facilities
Equitable changerooms and restrooms for all genders
Stadium grandstand
Five-a-side and performance pitches
Food and beverage programs
The new facility accommodates the administrative functions of headquarters for Football West and provide state-of-the-art training and game day facilities for WA’s professional and aspiring football players. Importantly, the facility is designed for equitable use by both male and female athletes.
We were engaged to develop a project definition plan to test and support the business case and we went on to be awarded the detailed design and delivery component via an open tender process.
Highly flexible design solutions
Supporting the game at all levels including grassroots, community and high-performance football programs, the project has required extensive user engagement and clever, highly flexible design solutions to accommodate broad requirements.
The building design maximises the value achieved within the capped budget by incorporating multi-purpose spaces that switch mode for different events such as seminar and meeting rooms that double as hospitality rooms on games days. During large, ticketed events, free community access to other areas including café and public amenities is retained. The design also incorporates capacity for a future A-league or W-League franchise to be based at the Centre.