Project Overview

Equivalent in height to a six-storey apartment block and able to pack in up to 1000 spectators, the Toowoomba Grammar School Gymnasium has room for a diverse sporting program.

Project Commissioner

Toowoomba Grammar School

Project Creator

Wilson Architects

Project Brief

The Toowoomba Grammar School Gymnasium accommodates a program of basketball and volleyball courts, synthetic multipurpose court and support spaces. A series of platforms linking existing buildings and playing fields negotiate the sloping site, creating a new core to the sports precinct.

The architectural intervention provides opportunities for:
• Competition-grade sporting facilities
• Accessible connections to key existing levels on a steeply sloping site
• Completion of the last link in a sporting precinct
for the Grammar School
• Enhanced amenity for and connections to the upper playing fields
• Covered outdoor learning
• Accessible link from the school to the playing fields.
• Continuous covered connections between the playing fields,
school hill-top precinct and the aquatic centre
• Binding together disparate building fabric of surrounding buildings
constructed over a protracted period and of varying styles

Project Innovation/Need

The ground level houses a synthetic-surfaced and netted multi-purpose court (for indoor cricket training, indoor soccer, futsal etc) and changing rooms. An extended outdoor plaza links the new facility to the aquatic centre at existing levels. A mezzanine level to this floor offers an additional overflow and spectator balcony as well as accommodating plant functions.

Formal entry to the building is via the second level, with covered courtyard and reception, two basketball courts, changing rooms and rock climbing wall. This level also addresses Trustees Oval, providing spectator seating and amenities for sporting events on the upper ovals. Spectator seating for the basketball courts is provided on the third level, along with classrooms and administration spaces for staff with views over Trustees Oval.

While the building contains four levels of programme, cutting the building into the sloping site minimises overall visual impact with only two levels visible. Additionally, the high court zones are clad in a slightly reflective, lightweight and translucent material to reduce visual bulk. A verandah form for the office and classroom functions adjacent to the oval spectator seating promotes reading the mass and form as a perceived single story from the street.

The existing character of the campus is acknowledged in the choice of masonry elements to provide a contextual link with both heritage and contemporary buildings on campus. These brick accretions also serve to define key elements of the facade and provide a humanising scale to what is necessarily a large complex. This strategy also reduces the perceived scale of the building in relation to the existing buildings.