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Architectural Review, The, Oct, 2000

Whitewater boating is not what everyone thinks of as an Olympic sport, nor is the pastoral country of New South Wales where you would expect to find it.

The whitewater centre is the least formal and most distant of all the Sydney Olympic facilities. Situated at the eastern end of the Olympic rowing course (p57), it is rather incongruously set in a green and tranquil landscape.

Intended for rafting and canoeing, water can be varied in speed according to the nature of the event. Obstacles representing rocks can also be changed. Water is pumped round the course from the lower level of the rowing lake by large pumps which raise it 5m to the top of the site, from where it is discharged down the course.

Grose Bradley (now part of Bligh Voller Nield), with Lorna Harrison the landscape architect, were commissioned at the last minute to rescue a scheme prepared by engineers for Pacific Power International, the project managers.

The new design team decided to link all enclosed elements under a rectangular roof. It is 100m long, and slopes down the site 5m from the cafe and manager's office at the highest point to the changing rooms, boat storage and maintenance at the lower end. A series of platforms locked into the landscape is linked by ramps for disabled people. Everything is shaded by the long roof. (Penrith can get very hot in summer -- up to 40[degrees]C.)

Like the other Olympic buildings, the whitewater centre is to be opened to the public after the Games are over. Canoeists will enter the building at the top end, buy a ticket and go down the ramps past the cafeteria and an open shaded area in the middle of the plan to the changing rooms, then further down to the boat storage area. From there, the craft are carried down a ramp to a pool of flat water, whence boats and crews are hauled up a conveyor belt to begin the ride.

The building is very simple. Roof height is determined by the need to store canoes upright in the store at the lower end of the building. Their height is then projected up the slope at the minimum pitch of steel cladding, which is approximately the same as the slope of the land. The structure is essentially three column portal frames that carry longitudinal channels, which bear purlins at 2m centres. Roof sheeting rests on the purlins, and the whole is stabilized by diagonal ties under the deck. Steel is galvanized, walls are fairfaced concrete block, and floors are concrete or asphalt.

The whole affair has a similar austere and simply expressive air: appropriate for the sport it serves.

Architect: Bligh Voller Nield, Sydney

Project team: James Grose, Sarah Kirkham, Catherine Chesterman

Structural and services engineer: Pacific Power International

Landscape architect: Lorna Harrison & Associates

Photographs: Anthony Browell