Sculptural transparency

Opened in October 2016, the KDV Golf and Tennis Academy is located on Queensland’s Gold Coast south of Brisbane, not far from the border with New South Wales. Built on a 12 hectare site at a cost of AUD 20 million, the complex was created by renovating and expanding the existing Carrara Gardens sports complex. It offers indoor and outdoor activities, sports and entertainment as well as plenty of opportunity for socialisation. It has a 12-hole golf course (of which 9 holes can be played at night), an 18-hole mini golf course and a 220-metre-long covered practice area for golf, surrounded by 12 tennis courts, a swimming pool, an 80-seat restaurant, a large gym, sports shops, a children’s playground and outdoor spaces devoted to the mainstay of Australian social life, the barbecue. There is also a 252-space car park. In view of these various characteristics, the site was chosen for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, for which purpose it will be integrated with a 72-room hostel, two football pitches and other multipurpose playing fields.
The sports centre is owned by KDV Group, a leading confectionary producer in Russian-speaking markets based in Tomsk, Central Russia and founded and directed by Denis Shtengelov, who fell in love with the Gold Coast and purchased and renovated the site in 2011.
The Sydney-based practice Shiro Architects led by Hiromi Lauren Shiraishi was tasked with the architectural project. A native of Osaka, Japan, Lauren has lived in Australia since 1994 and is strongly influenced by prêt-à-porter working methods. She has had her own practice since 2007 and is renowned for her ability to create economic value by making optimal use of available building space. This is a skill she acquired during the booming property market of 1980s Tokyo when the price of urban land was skyrocketing and it was vital to create the largest possible number of apartments from a given building.
The expansion of Carrara Gardens is based on the harmonious relationship between the building and the surrounding space. Its transparency serves to connect the interior and exterior, bringing the landscape inside and allowing an outside observer to look in. It is open, bright, transparent and inviting; nothing is hidden. Through the windows one can watch all the activities that are conducted inside the four volumes that make up the building, each with its own identity. With its balanced, vaguely sculptural volume stretching out along the ground combined with an airy structure and materials, the sports building has a light feel that is likely to retain its appeal for a long time to come.
For the interior floors Shiro Architects chose the Memory Mood collection from Panaria Ceramica, specifically the Dim tile in a 60×60 cm size with natural-rectified surface. For the exterior it used Dim in a 60×60 cm size with textured surface.
The entire project makes spontaneous use of eco-friendly practices, including extensive use of natural light, rainwater harvesting (for which purpose a 600,000 litre cistern has been built under the tennis courts) and a large number of solar panels with the aim of supplying 100% of the energy used during daylight hours.