The Morris Lemma Indoor Sports Centre in Canterbury, Australia

July 14, 2011 Category: Public Buildings, Sports

The Morris Lemma Indoor Sports Centre Design by McPhee Architect

The Morris Lemma Indoor Sports Centre Design Exterior 1

The Morris Lemma Indoor Sports Centre Design Exterior 2

The Morris Lemma Indoor Sports Centre Design Exterior 3

The Morris Lemma Indoor Sports Centre Design Interior 1

The Morris Lemma Indoor Sports Centre Design Interior 2

Designed by McPhee Architects, The Morris Lemma Indoor Sports Centre is located in Canterbury, Australia. As a community facility for the people of Canterbury, the beginning of the design process was to capture the context of Riverwood, a “poetic” place name combining both river and wood. This understanding of the geographic and cultural context was a springboard to the creative design process for the building. The form of the Centre expresses itself as a strong muscular building, closely following Council’s brief to provide a centre for community health fitness and strength.

Multiple strands of the existing physical ‘flow’ along the east-west axis of the site led us to devise the building as ‘finger’ box strips of various volumes in order to channel and harvest these ‘flows’ into a new desirable “catchment” premises for development of sports, recreational and cultural pursuits. These metal and fibre cement clad ‘fingers’ extend from the main sports hall west towards Belmore Road.