AUSTRALIA’S FIRST YEAR-LONG SNOW RESORT TO OPEN IN PENRITH

After an eight-year long process, Australia’s first perennial snow resort has been given the go-ahead. To be built in Penrith, the $400 million Winter Sports World was granted State Significant Development Application approval by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment.

The indoor snow resort will include a 300-metre advanced open run, as well as learn-to-ski runs and a winter wonder snow play area. Also featuring a dedicated competition venue for snow sports, the tourist attraction will facilitate ice climbing and crevasse outdoor rock climbing, as well as playing host to dining options and a 170-room hotel with conference and function rooms.

Kinetic lighting will create the illusion of a blizzard while the public area and curved low-level façade will be designed to look like melting ice, fostering the frosty aesthetic. Currently a 2.35-hectare horse paddock, the landscape will transform into a network of water streams, pathways, landscaped plantings and 8-metre tall wooden message sticks designed by First Nations artist Jamie Eastwood. Visually imitating mountains and melting ice, the message sticks will tell stories of First Nations people and their connections to Country.

Environa Studio developed the original scheme over a period of six years, with the subsequent competition to design the building’s façade won by Collins and Turner’s proposal. Designed by JLA Landscape Architects, engineer Atelier Ten, and an environment design consultant, the resort will generate net-zero carbon. Rooftop and north-facing wall photovoltaic panels will be used to create 50% of the resort’s energy, with the remaining power drawn from solar, wind, and hydroelectric sources offsite, with any further emissions to be offset. Peter Magnisalis, the developer behind Winter Sports World, said the project will be technically challenging and highly complex, “the first of its kind in Australia.”

The project will enter a phase of detailed design and engineering development in early 2024, with the first stage of construction involving excavation works for the basement which will house the large underground water tank for snowmaking.

Photographs from Collins and Turner via Architecture AU