Uni starts nest week. And looks like I’m getting thing sorted out a little more. I’ve got a fair idea of what the building is doing at Bathurst and I’ve started putting a pretty detailed image together of which race track I’m going to need to look at. 

Wikipedia's list of motor racing tracks 

I really wanted to do something that was within driving distance but it hasn’t worked out that way. I start off looking at the idea of the track being within Newcastle. After all 1 was proposed. It would make for a great street circuit. And do a lot to draw in a huge number of people into the city. The bad side is that they don’t stick around for long and the amount of money that would be needed to start a project like this would be huge. To level all the street, block it off, provide access to those people that live within the track and still maintain a level of safety to both the drivers and fans. Hard. 

 Newcastle in mix as v8 supercars take to country roads

So Newcastle was off the list. Sydney was the next closest and it didn’t provide anything that was grabbing my attention either. Most of the permenant tracks that were there didn’t have enough of a program to make the idea of building an iconic building viable. If they could afford it, nobody would ever be there to fully use it. So Eastern Creek in Sydney was out too.

I moved to Symons Plains in Victora as the next one, but again same problem, it had the V8 supercars there for a week, but other then that it was just general track days that are smaller race events.

Phillip Island then caught my attentions. Here was a track that held races for the V8 supercars, the Motogp, World Super Bike Championship, and had a building that didn’t respond to the site. The perfect location has just been found. After going to the website for the circuit it was all set in stone. The owners of Phillip Island, Linfox Pty Ltd, were in the process of making the grand prix circuit more environmentally friendly.

Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit 

The Linfox group had already installed a water recycling system that even when the circuit was being used to its capacity, no grey water left the site. Water run off from the building and site was also stored and used within the track confined and the Linfox group were attempting to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by offsetting it. They are in the process of planting over 2400 trees on the site. I’m not too sure how many emissions this offsets but doing something is a start and that’s better then nothing.

Beginings

Wow is all I can say after that meeting.

I sat on the train with the drawings they gave me trying to understand the building. I’m still amazed by the whole thing. They gave me a set of drawings from the construction of the building along with a 20 min meeting with the lead architect of the project. So worth while going to it. I was a little concerned that I’d walk away with more questions then answers but guess not this time.

I’m now completely sold on the idea of doing this as a project. My other ideas for the project revolved around trying to redesign the Gunnedah Hospital to incorporate the new Hunter New England Health building that will be used as a training facility for students nd rural doctors. It still sounds like a good project, but its not holding a candle to this race complex.

Once I’ve got these plans home. I’ll sit down and try to work out the relationship between all the major rooms, and see what I can come up with. Will need to post it up on this so I don’t lose it all

Lets make it Green

I’ve got it.

I’m going to research how to make a motor racing facility green. I’ve been looking into the most recent motor sport buildings built around the globe and they all seem to lack any sense of place. They don’t respond to the site, the people, the sport, the attitudes or the passion thats behind all the users and fans of the sport. Other sporting facilities like that of the archery pavilion done for the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney reflects the sport. The strength of the bow, the accuracy of the archer. These buildings have no heart.

A Few days ago I rang the firm the designed the Bathurst Race Facilities in Bathurst, NSW. I asked them if they were interested in meeting to discuss their design, the brief the was involved and the difficultites that they found. Hopefully they give me some good information and I can work out if this project is bigger then I can chew.