ELA were engaged to design a new amenities building and cricket club in Pearce Reserve, Blacktown, 30km west of Sydney.
The brief called for a robust cricket club and amenities building to serve the local cricket club as well as the broader community.
Functions were distributed between two adjacent pavilions, the larger housing a function room, canteen and toilets and the smaller housing ‘home’ and ‘away’ change rooms and storage. The pavilions sit side by side, addressing the oval and defining an in-between event space.
Experienced in-the-round, it was important that the pavilions have a sculptural quality and play with, but also against one another. Roof forms act as programmatic markers and poetic signifiers, each space finding poetic expression in response to need, ventilation, illumination and scale. The ‘chimneys’ allow the change rooms to breathe and dappled sunlight to enter which creates dramatic and surprising internal spaces befitting a public building. The relationship between pavilions becomes one of counterpoint - materially and formally.
A raised platform cuts into the landscape, grounding the building and creating an informal grandstand of bleacher seats. Above, a generous covered terrace maximises the functional possibilities for the cricket club, acts as a shading brim for spectators watching a game and provides the community with a space to gather and shelter.
Brick was chosen for its contextual familiarity, its robustness and economy as well the poetic opportunities it offers. By exposing the rough inside face of the bolster-cut bricks, texture, pattern and colour is introduced inviting a closer look. We love that the building’s decoration is implicit to its materiality and its construction in a simple and honest way.
Our hope is that the building performs well, weathers beautifully and is embraced by the cricket as well as the broader community. We also hope it feels local and familiar but a little strange and exotic at the same time.
Thanks goes to the ambitious and thoughtful Blacktown Council, Cricket Australia and the Parks Committee.
“The tranquillity of the Kings Langley Cricket Club and Amenities is a delightful contribution to its community. Restrained, hardworking, humble and referencing its suburban Blacktown materiality and typology, the project makes no grand statements, but provides a beautifully crafted community building.”
—Jury citation, 2022 Australian Institute of Architects Awards. Kings Langley Cricket Club & Amenities—
project team
Eoghan Lewis \ Jason Goh \ Nick Woolley
collaborators
Contractor: Dezign
Structural: SDA Structures
Hydraulic: PC Consulting Engineers Pty Ltd
Mechanical: Pace Consultant Engineering
Lighting: Lighting Art & Science
client
Blacktown City Council
photos
Keith Saunders
awards
2022 AIA NSW Award for Public Architecture
2022 AIA National Commendation for Public Architecture
2022 World Architecture Festival: Sport \ Shortlist
2022 World Architecture Festival: Small Project \ Shortlist
media
archdaily
architecture & design