COOGEE SURF LIFE SAVING CLUB CLUBHOUSE IN COOGEE NSW, AUSTRALIA
Location Coogee / NSW, Australia Client /operator Randwick City Council Architect Allen Jack+Cottier Sydney, Australia www.architectsajc.com Author Allen Jack+Cottier Photos Brett Boardman Official opening December 2020
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One of Australia’s oldest surf lifesaving clubs is transformed to double its capacity for community and surf lifesaver training. The redesign makes the club fully a ccessible and inclusive for the first time in its 113-year history. People in wheelchairs can now be lifesavers. This has been so successful in just three months of operation that Coogee SLSC is set to become the pilot site for a state-wide initiative training surf lifesavers of different abilities for other clubs around New South Wales. Coogee Beach, in Sydney’s southeast, attracts around 4 million visitors a year. The original Coogee Surf Life Saving Club (SLSC) was built in 1907 on a rock cliff at the southern tip of the beach and had been extended many times over the years as the club’s role and community engagement grew. These ad hoc additions resulted in a dysfunctional space with access impediments and no visual connection to the beach for surveillance. In 2016 the clubhouse suffered severe damage during a major storm, prompting plans for its renewal.
Working closely with the client (Randwick City Council) and the Coogee SLSC, the architects redesigned the clubhouse to dramatically improve capacity for training lifesavers and raising revenue to support its work. A new top floor at street level radically replans the interior by moving the kitchen, bar and offices from the beach-facing north wing to the south, using the street-facing western perimeter for bathrooms and concealed storage, increasing the capacity of the main room from 60 people to 200.
sb 5/2021
