Galvanized Steel for Waterloo Youth & Community Centre

Upholding very green park build
Waterloo Youth and Community Centre, NSW

The liberal use of galvanized steel has enabled a former amenities block at Waterloo Oval near Sydney's inner-city suburb of Redfern to be transformed into a built form to resist the corrosive effects of creeping vegetation it is designed to support - smart enough for the building to win the 2013 Sir John Sulman Medal, NSW's highest architectural award for public buildings.

Appearing almost at one with its parkland setting to house a modern workspace and counselling facility, its steel canopy structure was designed as an interlocking, but self-supported element also allowing for the future demounting and relocation of the structure.

Building materials were pared back and simply detailed, the building designed to be robust, low maintenance and long lasting. The steelwork not only needed to support the estimated weight of the 'creepers', but also to withstand the structure being climbed upon for maintenance, imposing greater than just maintenance loads.

" There was need for a long-term, maintenance-free finish for structural steel members and surfaces that will be unreachable for servicing of any kind once the plants have taken over the majority of the structure."

Principal of project architects Collins and Turner, Huw Turner said the building was conceived as a kind of collage between architecture, landscape and urbanism with the choice of galvanizing as both corrosion protection system and finish driven by two factors.

"Firstly, there was need for a long-term, maintenance-free finish for structural steel members and surfaces that will be unreachable for servicing of any kind once the plants have taken over the majority of the structure," he said.

"But equally the desire for the building to feel very much part of an urban inner-city environment was important and we took inspiration from common things like crash barriers, railings, roller doors, security fences. We felt that such a building would feel right at home in the middle of the city on the junction of some busy streets and on the edge of a skate park.

"Parts of the building receive a daily punishing from young people using the skate park so the new building needed to be as robust and resilient as possible and take more than a few hard knocks. Given this, a galvanized finish was our first and only consideration.

"The need for speed and ease of erection were also clear factors in the choice."

Client: City of Sydney
Architect and Lead Consultant: Collins and Turner
Structural Engineer: Arup
Builder: Projectcorp Australia
Steelwork Contractors: Performance Engineering Group, LDG Engineering, Woody's Metalwork, E-space Engineering