Upper Murray Events Centre

We were engaged by Towong Shire Council to design and document a new multipurpose facility on the Corryong Recreational Reserve site.

 The purpose-built events facility hosts various events including the annual “Man from Snowy River Bush Festival”, which attracts 20,000 people into the town. It also caters for two local football/netball clubs along with the cricket club. Internally there is a large function space, a commercial kitchen and bar, change rooms, meeting rooms and a new gym facility for Corryong Health.

The key project objective was to support growth across the existing user groups and attract new events to the region. The main design consideration was to draw on the heritage of the region and aesthetic of the old grandstand which had to be demolished due to irreparable structural issues. It was stored off site and planning stipulations required that building elements from the old grandstand were to be re used and incorporated into the new facility. Internal spaces needed to be flexible to accommodate multiple users and activities.

We drew inspiration from the old grandstand, by adopting the gable form in the roof, and repeating it in an array across the new building in a contemporary approach. This pays homage to the original building. When selecting materials for the external facades we took inspiration from the local stone cattlemen huts which help to express the locations uniqueness.

The building was under construction during the catastrophic 2020 bush fires and came very close to being engulfed by the fires. As a result of the bushfire disaster an ADF camp was set up on the oval adjacent to the building. We had specified timbers from the demolished grandstand to be incorporated into the social room. These needed to be stripped back and sanded prior to installation. The ADF volunteered their services to help with the building prep work of the old, recycled timbers. This resulted in some construction time saved when we had expected that time would be lost.