Warwick Hockey Centre

The Brief prepared by the City of Joondalup (CoJ) outlined a new sporting facility dedicated to providing a high-quality hockey facility in the northern suburbs of Perth. The brief called for:

• Three hockey pitches: one synthetic and two grass, built to international standards. One of the grass pitches was required to be designed in a manner that allowed conversion to synthetic turf in future years
• Clubrooms
• Offices
• Function room with full commercial kitchen
• Kiosk, bar and servery
• Players’ changerooms
• Public toilets

Working closely with the Project Control Group, which included representatives of the Warwick Hockey Club, Hockey WA, the City of Joondalup and Paterson Architects (PA), considerable effort was made to ensure the masterplanning of the site addressed all functional requirements.

The principles we developed were:

• Orient the two main pitches (one synthetic and one designated to become synthetic at a future stage) to run north-south
• Position clubrooms in the middle of the two main pitches to maximise overlooking and spectator seating
• Car parking positioned in close proximity to the facility
• The third pitch, designated to remain grass, to be located adjacent to the complex to allow ease of access to the facility
• Tiered seating with integrated player and official dugouts

The CoJ pursued a rigorous budgetary process to ensure the project was built to established budgets and benchmark rates. Our approach, endorsed by the CoJ, was to pursue a “value-for-money” outcome, maximising the benefit for all stakeholders and end users.

As the tender value was more than $1million below budget, the Client group was able to increase the scope for car parking, kitchen equipment and external finishes.

PA was able to integrate a number of Client changes during construction with no delay to the project timeline. 

The response from the Client, including both the City of Joondalup and Warwick Hockey Club, has been extremely positive.