Girl Power

Facility design guides for an equitable and inclusive future for females in sport

With the assistance of the Alastair Swayn Foundation, Melanie Mury is creating a practical design guide that is intended to support local governments, sporting bodies and community sporting clubs to provide facilities that will provide equal opportunity and encourage women and girls to enjoy sports. To find out more about the Alastair Swayn Foundation please visit alastairswaynfoundation. org.

Design as a remedy to sporting inequality

International research universally and simultaneously confirms that:

  • The cultural and physical environments in which sport is developed and played is a barrier to equal gender participation in sports.

  • There is immense social, political, health and funding support to transform sports to be gender inclusive and provide equal access to all in the community.

  • There is no existing detailed design resource that supports Australia’s 70,000 sporting clubs and 537 councils to implement actionable design strategies to achieve a better sporting future for females.

Actionable design guides for sporting clubs and councils

The outcome of the research being undertaken by our team (with the support of the Alastair Swayn Foundation) is to offer a set of practical design guides that clubs, councils and sporting bodies can use to positively encourage better sporting participation in Australia. The design guides are intended to include actionable strategies for new and existing facilities.

The guidelines will outline:

  • Design principles for female inclusive facilities at local, regional, state and national level sporting venues.

  • Create a cohesive single reference point for facility design for female inclusive environments for each of the key sporting codes.

  • Outline ongoing building management strategies for the retention of female athletes.

Would you like a copy?

Please fill in the form to indicate if you’d like to be notified when the design guide is available.

For further inquiries please contact us on studio@muryarchitects.com