Victorian Projects and Sites
Clayton Community Centre Precinct
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Landscape Architects: City of Monash Urban Design and Architecture
Location: Clayton Community Centre, Cooke Street Clayton.
The Clayton Community Centre is a unique public facility providing a broad range of community services under one roof: library, multi-purpose theatrette, indoor aquatic facility, gymnasium, health and fitness centre, cafe, community arts room, kindergarten, maternal and child health centre, occasional care, youth and family services, as well as a major regional community health centre.
The planning and design brief for the surrounding precinct called for the provision of “socially equitable, accessible public spaces and a sustainable, attractive, urban landscape commensurate with a major contemporary community centre”.
The Community Centre precinct has been designed with regard to following key objectives and outcomes:
A public place for people of all ages, abilities and cultures to encourage community ‘ownership’ of the place with a particular focus upon optional passive activities (sitting, reading, meeting, conversation and ‘watching the world go by’) as well as the ability to integrate these spaces with the proposed ‘community square’ in the redeveloped car park on the east side of Cooke Street and the existing Clayton Activity Centre.
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Facilitate the use of the new Community Centre and public spaces as a focus for major events, such as the Clayton Festival.
To ‘humanise’ the public environment, maximise summer shade and exposure to winter sun, as well as to encourage walking and cycling to the centre with consequential benefits for psychological and physical health.
A safe and comfortable pedestrian environment. Environmental design techniques have calmed traffic speed to below 40km and have created a much safer pedestrian environment.
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Water sensitive urban design techniques, including rain gardens and swales, are an integral part of the design. This has minimised the need for below ground drainage works and has the added benefit of filtering out pollutants and improving water quality before entering the larger storm water system.
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Integrated public art installations acknowledge the previous land use (Clayton Memorial Swimming Pool) and also express the function and character of the new community precinct (‘…welcome, strength and achievement…’)
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The project specification was framed to maximize the use of re-used, recycled and recyclable materials, as well as low-embodied energy materials.
The design approach adopted for the Community Centre precinct has been influenced by three urban design models: ‘Shared Space’ streetscape model (Monderman), ‘Reconquered City’ (Jan Gehl & Lars Gemzoe Architects) and CPTED principles.
The Community Centre precinct establishes a local benchmark for quality urban design and provides a design reference for future public and private investment.
The budget for the Community Centre Precinct project (comprising undergrounding of over head power lines in Cooke Street, landscape construction of public spaces associated with the building and courtyards, car park construction and associated streetscape enhancement works) was in the order $3.5m.
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