The evolution of modern sporting and training spaces correlates well with the growth of the elite athlete. Advancements in sports science and technology, combined with functional design, has transformed what is needed within these spaces to develop fitter and faster athletes.
ANZ Stadium during the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Image: populous.com
Warrick Chalmers is a Principal at globally renowned sports architecture and design company Populous and has worked on a variety of design, client liaison and project management roles with well known stadia projects in Australia, New Zealand and England including London’s Wembley Stadium, ANZ Stadium in Sydney and Eden Park in New Zealand’s capital.
He was the Project Leader on the award-winning Skilled Park on the Gold Coast, Queensland, the staged development of Simonds Stadium in Geelong as well as the redevelopment of the Sydney Showgrounds at Sydney Olympic Park into Skoda (now Spotless) Stadium.
Chalmers is at the forefront of Populous’ work in elite training facilities and he enthusiastically chatted about the transformation of these spaces.
Are you able to describe yours, and the company’s, design philosophy for training facilities?
“It’s a new sector for us, it’s a new sector in the Australian market. Our US and UK offices have been doing training facilities for a while and we’ve done a few in Australia but only now we’ve made a concerted effort to get really stuck into it.
“Our design philosophy, it’s like ‘attacking or burning a candle from both ends.’ At one end you’ve got the wow factor elements – these things are critical like the entry lobby – what’s going to make a great first impression like the saying, ‘you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.’ To really celebrate a club’s history and accomplishments, every club has some kind of celebrated history, not quite expansion clubs just yet but most clubs do. So to honour that and play into that, the lobby has to reflect that the club is aspirational and celebrates its past. To other spaces like gym spaces, you really want that to be a dynamic space with inspirational graphics, natural light. And hydrotherapy spaces, recovery pools, in that space to be really big.
“At the other end, it’s what we call the ‘one percenters.’ Commentators talk about that, clubs and teams winning the one percenters. We also apply that philosophy in terms of the design, so little things like making sure the adjacencies are right, back to players locker areas, adjacent to the hydrotherapy area so they’re not traipsing water everywhere, the physio area, the head physios got to link over to hydrotherapy so they can monitor what’s going on. From there the head of physical performance or head trainer is overlooking the gym, we always try and get the head coach overlooking the field or the gym depending on what they prefer. So it’s all of those little things which the layman doesn’t see which we’re actually spending a lot more time on, it makes functionality of the building and efficiency a whole lot better and I think over time all of those little half percenters and those little bits of time that they save over the year, you may not notice it clearly but over time it washes off into the efficiency and performance of the club as a whole.”
It’s kind of like an “arms race,” just to get the extra edge over your opposition.
“It is. One of those slogans we pitch to clubs is ‘recruit, train, win’ and these facilities reflect that. It helps you recruit players, staff and administration, and it helps to optimise the training of not only the athletes but the performance of the administration and staff. Ultimately they can win both on and off the field.
“This arms race, there is definitely one going on in the AFL and it’s starting to emerge in the NRL but you cannot get too carried away in something which is made to look great, have a massive budget and be really flamboyant. It may not necessarily mean a bigger training facility than something which is a bit more low key but works really well.”
With that in mind, a world class training facility is an attractive proposition to athletes and future coach, scientific and player development. What role would design play in defining the new breed of modern training facilities?
“What we do is design the container which reflect the advances in sports science. At the end of the day we’re not trainers or sports scientists so we’re not going to tell you what to do or how to do it but we listen and we design these containers which reflect how they want to approach their training regime, their nutrition regime.
“We’ve seen recently the advancement in technology – tablet and phone culture – and one of the direct results of that is meeting spaces. So we’re going away from formal lecture spaces and meeting rooms. There will always be a room for a formal meeting or lecture space but when you break it down, for example an AFL club they’ll have meetings with their forwards, midfielders and backs and even now we’ve just finished the Giants (Greater West Sydney), in that everyone has their program on their iPad’s and they’re getting briefed initially as a group. Some rooms can work either way as a formal meeting room but also can be designed for casual use with beanbags, which reflects Gen Y culture and also reflects the way they learn. It’s getting less and less away from the guy out front teaching.”
What current elite training projects is Populous and yourself working on?
“We are working on the Brisbane Broncos training centre.”
So, training and elite facilities are a growing market for Populous?
“For sure, it is in the Australian market. For Geelong Cats, we did their high performance centre – but that was a part of their stands, the premiership stand – that was a special case. But in the last five years we’ve made a more concerted effort to build our own dedicated sector here. We have a dedicated sector in the US and UK offices.
“What sets us apart from other companies in Australia is we can tap into that experience of what’s happening in the UK and US markets. So we’re always abreast of what’s happening in the UK and US and we can bring that experience to our Australian clients, that’s our competitive advantage. As much as our enthusiasm, dedication and passion for sport.”
Is it then fair to compare the evolution in training facilities matches the evolution of the elite athlete and sports club?
“Yes it does. The evolution of sport, with a bigger profile and more money, clubs are trying to get a competitive advantage. Through that the athlete, that makes up the team for the club, is getting faster and fitter and the sports science that goes behind that is getting more advanced, everyone is looking for that competitive advantage, unfortunately as we have seen in Australia you can go a bit too far.”
And what nations, clubs or franchises are at the forefront of the contemporary training facility?
“Obviously the American market with the NFL and the collegiate system. In some ways the collegiate market is a bit more advanced than the NFL from my observation because our American office does both collegiate and NFL. I would suggest they’re on a par if anything because there is a bit more money in some of these colleges than some NFL clubs. So there a whole lot of advances that we have seen.
“And then in Europe, it’s definitely the English clubs that are a bit more advanced than the continental clubs. Though you get to look at clubs like Bayern Munich, I’ve heard good things about their training facility. We even helped design Real Madrid’s training facility. But the continental clubs are maybe a half step behind, that’s my reading of it.
“Last November I saw Tottenham Hotspur’s and Arsenal’s, Tottenham’s has just been built and it’s an amazing facility, Arsenal’s is still a great facility yet it was built 13 years ago and St George’s (England Football Association’s training centre) national training academy is pretty great and I hear Manchester City, which is being designed at the moment, is going to be spectacular.
“But I don’t hear much happening on the continent, like your big Spanish and Italian clubs. So mainly it’s the EPL, the NFL and the collegiate market definitely.”
Lastly, can innovative design positively influence athletes?
“I think so. We’re big on the psychology of athletes, for example, the hydrotherapy or the rehabilitation spaces we want them to be full of natural light so they feel better but, if possible, they have a view out to the playing field and they can see the rest of the team training for psychological things so they can see where they want to be, ‘this is why you’re going through the pain at the moment, this rehab is to get you back out on to the field.’ We try and incorporate where we can but sometimes the site dictates that you can’t.
“But one of our big philosophies is to get the football departments and the administration departments together because that’s what football clubs are broken down to – players, coaches and trainers and the back of house staff – and yet in a lot of clubs you get a bit of an ‘us and them’ simply by virtue of the fact that they’re at different levels, they don’t speak to each other or see each other and that can cause a bit of a divide. I always think that the most successful clubs are the ones which are one whole.
“They’re separate to a degree but when you can you can bring them together like having communal dining spaces, and just through osmosis there is this connectivity of different departments and that allows for casual conversations which things can emerge in a positive way. And even circulation spaces, the ability to look say a corridor of a football department and see upstairs and see people walking on the administration corridor so you try and maximise the incidental running into people which helps communication between two different departments which can only help the club overall.”