Hornsby Community Space banner

With a striking façade that celebrates PCYC’s bold brand colours, Cemintel’s Commercial ExpressWall cladding system played a key role in bringing the design of this treasured club space to life.

Offering a range of activities, from boxing, table tennis, indoor soccer, badminton, and judo as well as acting and dancing classes, Hornsby’s PCYC plays an essential role in the local Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai communities. To facilitate its growing membership base, the club recently moved to a new site at the Mark Taylor Oval precinct of Hornsby’s Waitara Park.

Working in partnership with Hornsby Council, PCYC worked alongside their building and design teams, Carfax Commercial Constructions and Facility Design Group - Architects (FDG), to deliver a multi-purpose, two storey space, that served the community’s needs, and also met Council’s stringent site requirements.

Citing specific guidelines for the building’s tone, aesthetic, height and foot print, Hornsby Council’s brief called for a bold facade design that would also merge seamlessly with the heritage trees of Waitara Park’s recreational grounds.

“As the premier PCYC facility in New South Wales, we wanted the building to present a commanding look with a bold, industrial feel, so we introduced a combination of raw finishes and bright colours to achieve this,” explains Andrew Fenwick, Senior Project Manager at Hornsby PCYC.

“Cemintel’s BareStone provided the perfect solution for this desired, neutral aesthetic. A prefinished cladding, it required no painting or surface preparation and delivered a high-quality concrete looking finish. The cladding’s express joints also introduced an added detail to the facade,” explains Fenwick.

To heighten the facade’s dramatic feel with a bolt of colour, the team chose Cemintel’s Commercial Express Panel cladding and painted it red to provide a nod to PCYC’s branding and create a stark contrast to the raw, grey BareStone panels.

“The second floor gym and adjoining balcony is one of the club’s key focal points, so we wanted a building material that ensured this space formed a distinctive feature in the facade. Cemintel’s ExpressWall panels were the perfect canvas, we painted them red to create a captivating aesthetic and the result speaks for itself; the building is a stand out design on the local skyline and is even visible to planes flying from a northern approach,” adds Fenwick.

Both Cemintel products were selected for the aesthetic and performance benefits they brought to the project.

“From an architectural point of view, FDG utilised Cemintel’s range for its ability to provide a robust and sharp looking facade treatment, as well as the variation in palette it offers. From a painted, coloured finish to a raw, sealed cement look, it delivered the powerful contrast we were looking to achieve,” explains Stephen Johansson from FDG.

Fellow FDG architect, Andrew Teodorwych, further explains; “We chose the Barestone on the east side of the building to work in with the precast concreate wall of the basketball hall, but also wanted to add colour to the rest of the exterior facade to offset these monolithic finishes.”

The products’ installation system was another consideration for the team. As lightweight building materials, both BareStone and Express Panels use a common, reputable construction system, Cemintel’s Commercial ExpressWall, ensuring a swift and efficient build, saving the project time and money.

“Cemintel’s BareStone and Express Panel cladding proved the perfect choice for this project, as they provide a lightweight, cost and time effective, facade solution, that looks good and will perform long term,” adds Paul Reimer from Carfax Commercial Constructions.

The final result was described by PCYC Club Manager Daniel Allars as “The best facilities in the state’’ as the club is now home to a fantastic suite of facilities including two premium indoor sports courts, a modern gym, a full gymnastics set-up, various multipurpose rooms and a fully catered café.”

With the redevelopment proving instrumental in driving the club’s growth, and over 1,000 people joining once the new facility was announced, the PCYC is set to continue its role as a key community hub for Hornsby locals for the next fifty years, and beyond.

CSR Cemintel
Hornsby Community Space
Hornsby Community Space
Hornsby Community Space
Hornsby Community Space

Professionals used in
Hornsby Community Space

About the
Professional

CSR Cemintel are the fibre cement and lightweight composite solution specialists. With design and innovation as our central drivers, Cemintel offers engineered systems around prefinished solutions that enhance performance and aesthetics, as well as traditional internal lining products. Our passion is to help Kiwis design right, and build better.

Cemintel fibre cement is changing the face of design and innovation in Australia. Tapping into global design trends, Cemintel brings the best the world has to offer to the Australian market – providing the latest designs fused with innovative new approaches. Cemintel is part of CSR – the brand behind the most trusted building products. Cemintel has a progressive approach to fibre cement built around a team of experts, including; technical support, engineers and building designers. For our clients, it means you’re getting the best products paired with the best experience.

Cemintel - Cement Intelligence

With unparalleled design flexibility, fibre cement is perhaps one of the most flexible building materials available today. Through innovation and intelligence with cement panels, Cemintel offers a range of products, systems and services that inspire, giving choice and real design flexibility to create striking points of difference.

Unparalleled Design Flexibility

Fibre cement is perhaps one of the most flexible building materials available today.

  • It can be manufactured in numerous panel sizes and thicknesses.
  • It can be cut into various shapes and patterns.
  • It can be compressed for high strength applications.
  • It can be used in acoustic systems.
  • It can be used as a superior wet area lining product.
  • It can be painted.
  • It can be tiled.
  • It can be used for fire resistance applications.

New materials influence the way buildings are defined. Cemintel is responding to the growing importance of external and internal cladding with the release of new prefinished ranges. These ranges respond to the preference for high performance, lightweight materials and the desire for buildings to enhance the environment where we live. From external façades to interior surfaces, these ranges are a reinterpretation of cladding as we know it.

It’s the future of building and it starts now.

An Idea Born From Imagination

The father of fibre cement, Ludwig Hatschek, started to imagine a new building material in 1894. He wanted a material that was lighter than brick, cheaper than slate and better than sheet metal.

In 1900, he achieved his breakthrough with a special mix of fibres, cement, pulp, air and water. The Austrian calls the world’s first industrially manufactured building material ‘Eternit’ and numerous European countries adopted the technology from 1903. Australia first introduced the technology in about 1917.