Purkiss Swimming Pool Complex and Football Change Rooms

Hames Sharley is designing a new outdoor pool complex and football change room facilities for Barkly Regional Council, with a significant upgrade of the Purkiss Reserve Swimming Pool Complex in Tennant Creek. The new design focuses on the swimming pool complex as a community hub with the relationship between the facilities and other community elements being crucial to their performance and realising a positive outcome for the community.

The redevelopment will provide a new focus for recreation, fitness and leisure within the shire and has a 6 lane, 25-metre lap swimming pool, learn-to-swim and toddler pools and a splash and play park. The various pools are combined within an innovative and efficient design that achieves the council’s aspirations within a tight budget. As a family-friendly centre, the design provides landscaped recreation areas and a multi-purpose civic space with ample shade. A café is connected to both the interior of the swimming pool complex and the adjoining Peko Road via an entrance plaza that provides a community space for use all year round. This public space and café will benefit Tennant Creek by being utilised throughout the year, not just when the outdoor pool facilities are in operation from October through to February.