Soccer5s is a five-a-side soccer complex located in the outer Melbourne suburb of Dandenong South.
Plus Architecture master planned and designed the complex.
The complex consists of a full facility clubhouse and ten soccer pitches, complete with café and car parking.
Designed by Plus Architecture and delivered as a modern space complete with details designed to connect with soccer enthusiasts, Soccer5s Dandenong serves as five-a-side soccer’s flagship Australian centre.
This is a sporting facility that players are proud to call their own and, since completion, Soccer5s has proved such a popular proposition that it attracts teams from all over Melbourne.
The centre is a welcome addition to the life of the local community and to soccer enthusiasts across the city.
Plus Architecture’s design intent was to provide a flagship design for the Soccer5s concept in Australia.
The clubhouse was intended to act as a ‘beacon’ for the surrounding area and the design language adopted references the industrial context of the site.
Located in an industrial zone, the centre more than holds its own amid its surrounding landscape of large, box-like structures and yet-to-be-developed land.
The site of the Soccer5s Dandenong clubhouse is one dominated by a giant order of constructed elements.
To the west runs East Link, heavy with trucks and its adjacent huge sculptures, to the south is the LOGIS Cargo and Logistics Management (CALM) Centre rising 12.5m above the Soccer5s site, and to the north lies the LOGIS Eco-Industrial Park with its large-scale buildings, roadways, and associated large service vehicles.
Plus Architecture did not shy away from the centre’s physical context.
While the programme for the clubhouse was relatively small in this context, the concept sought to bridge this scale divide.
In fact, the box-like clubhouse structure initially appears to mirror its neighbours.
From a distance, the envelope of the building is contiguous; a supersized morphological ‘box’ that appears at home in its surroundings.
Up close the envelope breaks down to human scale.
Details appear through the translucent skin and openings that encourage interaction with people as they either pass by on their way to the Cargo and Logistics Management Centre or through to the Soccer5s clubhouse.
Thus the building acts on a series of scales and truly belongs as a built form in a unique landscape while providing a recognizable pedestrian gateway to the CALM centre and acting as a strong icon for the Soccer5s club in Dandenong.
The exterior has a paneled texture drawn from the idea of a lantern, lighting the way inside the facility.
The facility is particularly busy in the evenings and when lit up at night the façade serves as a welcoming beacon for the club’s players, friends, and fans.
Rather than offering a monotonous single-sided view, the building’s paneled façade offers visual variation that clearly distinguishes it from its industrial neighbours.
On entering the facility, the people-scale qualities of the design come to the fore with zones for team preparation and socializing, the comfortable café area and modern changing facilities.
The interior was designed to not just make a space for passing through but an environment for coming together.
The café area, for example, is furnished with timber share tables and kitchen-style stools around tall benches.
This, combined with the space’s sunny outdoor aspect, combine the familiarity of a family environment with the attractions of modern-style dining.
Project Details
Project size – 13,000 m2
Completion date – 2015
Project Team
Architecture
Plus Architecture
Founded in 1997, Plus is an award-winning, integrated master planning, architecture and interior design practice.
Through a thoughtful and professional approach, the Plus team’s capabilities deliver a wide range of project typologies and scales.
Photography
Jaime Diaz-Berrio
Melbourne-based photographer Jaime Diaz-Berrio trained in Architecture and has worked in Mexico and Australia designing residential, commercial and industrial spaces.
Photo Gallery
Click on a thumbnail image to enlarge.
Design © 2020 Plus Architecture. All Rights Reserved.| Images © 2020 Jaime Diaz-Berrio. All Rights Reserved.
Get the Builtworks Letter
In every edition of the Builtworks Letter, you’ll get the behind-the-scenes backstory as to how buildings are designed, built, and brought to life.
You’ll hear compelling stories, learn surprising ideas, meet engaging characters, and discover unique voices.