MOTORSPORT AUSTRALIA
2019
‘Three floors, one system, connected by a single move.’
Motorsport Australia engaged March Studio to design its headquarters in Canterbury, Victoria.
The existing building, a solid concrete and brick commercial structure from the 1980s, was reconsidered not simply as three stacked floors, but as a single system distributed across three levels.
Like many buildings of its time, it was defined by grids, columns, car parking, ceiling panels, workstations. Rather than resist this, the project adopts the grid as its primary ordering device.
The logic extends to the discipline itself.
The starting grid.
The chequered flag.
Rules, regulation, precision.
This is what Motorsport Australia governs, from Formula One to Phillip Island MotoGP, to Supercars Championship.
The plan reorganises the building as a connected workplace. Teams that need proximity are aligned across levels, separated where required, but linked through a continuous spatial system.
Workstations, meeting rooms, breakout areas, and support spaces are distributed across the three levels, alongside informal zones, canteen and outdoor areas, and provisions for vehicle access into the building. Smaller rooms for calls and remote work are embedded throughout.
At the centre of the project is a full-height stair, a connecting element that binds the three levels into one continuous environment.
The stair becomes both circulation and identity.
A distorted black and white grid, drawn from the logic of the chequered flag, extends vertically through the space. It pulls apart as it rises, connecting floors while registering movement and change. Backlit, it operates as both infrastructure and display.
Embedded within this surface is a recognition of Australian motorsport history, referencing figures such as Jack Brabham and Alan Jones, among others.
The result is a workplace structured by the same principles as the sport it represents, ordered, rule-based, and interconnected.
A building reorganised as a system.
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WORKPLACE
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COMPLETE
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WURUNDJERI | CANTERBURY | VICTORIA
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BUILDER | KOBLE
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER | CO-STRUCT
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PETER BENNETTS