Bendigo
Municipal Baths
Redevelopment
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Our work at Bendigo’s former Municipal Baths seeks to bring revitalise the site in Rosalind Park for a new generation of use and enjoyment.
Client
City of Greater Bendigo
Location
Bendigo, VIC
Spiire was engaged by the City of Greater Bendigo as the lead designers for the revitalisation of the City’s Municipal Baths.
The site is an open lake in Bendigo’s high-profile, heritage-listed Rosalind Park. In its rich history as Bendigo’s primary municipal swimming pool for the first half of the 20th century, the facility included a grandstand facing the water, platforms, a 10m diving board, water polo field and change rooms.
The facility closed in the 1950s and has been inaccessible to the public since the 1980s.
Our Landscape Architecture, Water Engineering and Visual Media teams have worked closely together on this project. We collaborated with a team of allied consultants, including external structural and electrical engineers, irrigation and lighting design, quantity surveyors and access consultants, to design and document a revitalised community precinct.
Our design celebrates the experience of ‘people coming together around water’ and being ‘immersed in the water’s landscape’ and brings the neglected site back to life for a new generation of use and enjoyment.
The design includes an interpretation of the former Baths’ structures in the north-east corner of the water body. It seeks to represent the spirit of the Baths by including a small water play area, the ‘Paddling Paddock’, in a gesture to a former paddling reserve for young children shown on the original 1913 plans. While swimming will not be permitted, the Paddling Paddock provides the community with the opportunity to interact with water and continue the site’s tradition.
The design also includes improvements to the quality and presentation of the water, including adding indigenous riparian and aquatic vegetation, to create a rich natural environment.
Construction of a boardwalk, circulation paths, shelters and picnicking facilities will provide abundant opportunity for community enjoyment.
