FINDING A SENSE OF PLACE
Burswood, Western Australia
Hassell, Cox Architecture, HKS
When the Graham Farmer freeway opened in 2000, it revealed to the citizens of Perth an elevated view of the Swan River and the river’s edge. The freeway and its tunnel (colloquially known as the Polly Pipe, after footy legend Graham “Polly” Farmer) expedited the masses from the northern suburbs to the south by tunnelling under the city’s north, crossing over the Swan and landing on a spongy, open expanse of an oxbow peninsula. The view from the road revealed to the east the glorious architectural carcass of the massive East Perth Power Station and to the south, across the peninsula, an underdeveloped neighbourhood of leisure – horses, golfers, paddlers, its primary residents. Despite its proximity to the CBD, the Burswood peninsula, this low-lying landscape of soft soil and reliable flooding, had for the most part escaped development.
In 2011, the Barnett government announced the Burswood Peninsula to be the site of Perth’s long-awaited Stadium. As early as 2005, a taskforce was established by the then Labor government to review Perth’s existing three arenas and confer with major sports codes to define and locate a stadium forthe diverse sporting and entertainment requirements of Perth’s future. The recommendation was for one multi-purpose stadium with, three
