Kilora Active Reserve
Building a sport facility for a brand new community
Victoria

Clyde North is an expanding suburb in a growth development corridor south-east of Melbourne. The selected site already had existing residential roadways and footpaths constructed, so the design was required to complement these pre-defined parameters. As a result, there was in excess of a 1.0m fall across the site which needed to be accounted for in the design.

The master plan for the site developed by the City of Casey contained:

• A main natural turf oval for AFL with synthetic cricket wicket,

• Acrylic netball courts,

• Synthetic cricket practice enclosures,

• A carpark,

• A pavilion.

The design demanded we combine both civil engineering and sports fields design knowledge. The site required significant earthworks to ensure the proposed carparks, access roads and internal footpaths not only created a seamless interface with the proposed pavilion and Fields of Play, but also the surrounding existing infrastructure.

The drainage solution for the site required the proposed drainage network to drain towards the south-west corner of the site to the existing legal point of discharge. Subsequently a main drain down the western side of the facility collected collector pipework from across the site. Council required the installation of tree wells in the carpark to capture stormwater run-off. The surface drainage infrastructure for the carparks were designed to drain low flow storm events into these tree wells resulting in treatment of water and passive irrigation of the trees. A very interesting solution to work with – bringing another environmentally friendly solution to the overall project!

Along with these tasks, SPORTENG needed to consider the coordination of the service connection (water, gas, electricity and sewage) for the pavilion. At the same time, sports fields knowledge was required to design the acrylic asphalt court, the synthetic cricket nets, as well as the large natural turf oval.

For Kilora Active Reserve, HK Solutions were engaged to design the sports-lighting infrastructure to the main oval and netball courts including the electrical and lighting control systems.

The lighting and electrical infrastructure required knowledge of specialist sports-lighting luminaire performance, safe and practical electrical infrastructure systems, and functional lighting control systems to enhance user experience.

The Council required sports-lighting that would suit competition standards and be able to be operated locally or remotely from Council’s irrigation centralised monitoring and control system (IRRInet). This is an atypical request for this type of active reserve.

To deliver on this request, HK Solutions needed a proficient understanding of control and automation systems, and to integrate the sports-lighting control onto the IRRInet system currently operated by Council.

HK Solutions engineers are solution providers and worked with Council’s facilities team to understand the specifics of the IRRInet system, and engineered a way to integrate the sports-lighting local control system with Council’s IRRInet.

The completed complex “will provide another recreational facility for one of Casey’s most populated areas.” This is particularly important to the City's residents overall health and wellbeing – according to the 2016 Census data, only 51% of Casey residents are meeting recommended activity levels.

Kilora Active Reserve is also considered as one of the “major sporting facilities and recreation reserves [developed] across the local community in the [2020] financial year.”

Of course, having facilities available for use does not automatically translate into higher levels of physical activity. People need to know they are there and be motivated and able to use them. By having the lighting of the facility accessible remotely, a steady schedule can be created for the residents of Casey to become familiar with.

Sources:

The Mirage News - Council injects millions to construct new sporting hubs across Casey community

Casey Council official website - Official report

Casey Council official website - Council injects millions to construct new sporting hubs across Casey community

National Tribune - Council injects millions to construct new sporting hubs across Casey community 

Return to the main project page here.