dwp designed Eric Tweedale Stadium secures Australian Timber Design Award 2021

The $11.3 million Eric Tweedale Stadium located in Western Sydney’s Granville and designed by dwp | design worldwide partnership was recently announced as winner of the Australian Timber Design Award 2021. In addition to winning the overall Award for TImber design, the project also won in the category of ‘Commercial and Public Buildings’ as well as Excellence in Engineering.

The Eric Tweedale Stadium has received huge interest and industry recognition since its opening earlier this year. Appearing on Australian National Television and various industry publications worldwide from Australia and Asia all the way to Serbia in Eastern Europe, the Eric Tweedale Stadium and the design team at dwp | design worldwide partnership are now also the proud recipients of the Australian Timber Design Award.

The Eric Tweedale Stadium offers a new home for community sport and provides residents and visitors a revitalised facility. The stadium, which will be home to the Two Blues Rugby Union Club, has been a benchmark for sustainable construction with a key focus on an intricately detailed timber roof structure designed by dwp|Design Worldwide Partnership.

Lead Designer and Project Architect of the stadium Ivana Simkovic of dwp|Design Worldwide Partnership said the venue was a benchmark in terms of cost effectiveness, efficiency, design quality and sustainability.

The Australian Timber Design Awards celebrate the design and construction of structures that feature timber. Now in their 22nd year, the Awards are distinguished by a proud heritage of winning projects that demonstrate innovation. The Awards promote and encourage outstanding timber design. Winning this award is testament to dwp’s exceptional design skills, commitment to sustainability and dedication to dwp’s practice ethos ‘Design for a Better world’.

The design of the Eric Tweedale Stadium is driven by the stadium’s connection to the local environment and history of the Cumberland Plains. Located within Granville Park, its form and materiality respond to the site’s heritage as much as to its current sporting environment. The Stadium includes a grandstand with change rooms, multipurpose room, first-floor function space, commercial kitchen and outdoor viewing deck. The glulam roof cantilevers over eight meters over the seating, creating a simple yet strikingly beautiful form that also gives historical reference to the forest that once dominated the site. The use of a mass timber structure in the Stadium is the first use of glulam timber for this type of facility in Australia, representing an impressive achievement in architectural design and timber engineering.

dwp Chief Executive Michael Hegarty notes “the Eric Tweedale Stadium is a truly outstanding project and it is the outcome of great work by a cohesive project team led by an exceptional Design Director, Ivana Simkovic of dwp Sydney studio. The team included the Cumberland City Council client with a clear vision, the supportive end-users and project stakeholders, skilled engineers and resilient builders who worked through the challenges of the last two years.

"They have collectively created a beautiful building that celebrates its place and its purpose. The Stadium is already well loved by the users, it creates positive experiences because of its design, as joyful as a musical composition and Ivana was the ‘conductor of the orchestra’. She firstly imagined the architectural form, then meticulously designed it and, with great determination, she resisted unnecessary compromises to ensure that the team delivered.

“It’s simply fantastic to win the Australian Timber Design Award 2021. This award is greatly deserved industry recognition of the design skills and drive of Ivana Simkovic and the dwp team. I congratulate everyone involved and I especially want to thank Cumberland City Council for supporting our design vision. We also would like to extend our appreciation to our colleagues at Northrop Engineers who shared the drive for sustainable design solutions, Belmadar, the contractor and Rubner who supplied the timber, as well as all other consultants who worked with us on this project.”

Simkovic added “sustainable design is central to what we do at dwp and therefore environmental sustainability was an important objective of the project and timber construction was key to achieving this. The use of a mass timber structure in the Stadium is the first use of glulam timber for this type of facility in Australia and represents an impressive achievement and benchmark in timber engineering.”