Catch it... Slow it... Clean it... Dischage it...
Bells Beach is located 100 km south-west of Melbourne, on the Great Ocean Road near the towns of Torquay and Jan Juc. Bells Beach is the home of surfing in Victoria and arguably Australia. It is also home of the world’s longest-running surfing competition –the Rip Curl Pro Surf and Music Festival.
Bells Beach is the starting point for many, if not most, of the tour bus stop. Since it is well known for the surfing, and beautiful site, many tourists visit Bells Beach.
This beautiful and significant site in Victoria needs improvement. The car park is not stormwater proof resulting erosion and the car park doesn’t have enough space for the amount of visitors and especially during the surf competition.
Co-existance of nature and man-made
Design proposals are
· Separating bus parking and car parking so the buses do not take up normal car parks and by dividing them, we are creating less collision.
· Increasing the car parking to 200 park-able areas which is for the Rip Curl Pro surf competition.
· Each car park platforms have 1m level difference. This is because of the natural slope on the site and by doing this we can allow natural downhill car park.
· Each car park platforms have viewing areas at the edge to get good view of the beach. This area is made wide not just for normal visitors but is mainly aimed for the surf competition observers.
· Creating several ponds next to the car park that is to capture and slowdown the storm water that is collected on the car park.
· These waters collected are taken down to the bigger ponds on the western side, these ponds are designed to slow down the collected water but also to clean them so the water can be discharged into the creek.
· Footpaths made up with timber decking that ha seating on the side for resting and viewing the beach. Also few viewing platforms are placed on the footpaths for surf competition.
Water filtering system designed to ease errosion problem
Bottom Pond
Storm water delivered by the PVC pipe is stored here until enough water has been captured and naturally water goes to the lower pond by aqueduct.
Car park Pond
Water collected on hard surface is transported into these ponds and travels down into bottom ponds by pvc pipes
Ponds with four seasons
Bells beach
‘Bottom ponds’ are series of ponds man made by digging and installing concrete edges. The main roll for these is to capture and slow down the water movement. All the water collected on the car park are sent here by the pipes, also all the storm water which were bound to end up on the southern cliff which will result in erosion are to be collected through these ponds. These ponds are wetlands also. Because of the sizes and plants which are going to be planted are wetland plants, they can cleanse the dirty storm water which is then discharged into the creek on the far east. With this wetland filtration system we can install any toilets as many as we want and as long as the sewer is discharging the waste into the top pond, it will then be clean enough to be discharged into the creek at the end.
Bells beach seating transect
By installing the Decking Footpaths, we are eliminating the issue of picking up more hard surface area if concrete was used. All the rain will simply soak into the ground instead of hard surface picking up all the storm water and in fact it speeds up as the water goes downhill
Bells beach seating design
Foot paths linking the beach and the car park shouldn’t just be a path. There should be places where people could have a sit and observe the surrounding while having a sandwich or surfers who might rest their board somewhere between the beach and the car park to observe other surfers. This is why the footpath design isn’t just simple footpath.
Viewing platform attached to the cliff
The viewing platforms are mainly aimed for the Rip Curl Pro surf competition. Only one of the 6 platforms is designed at the moment as there should be 6 different types of platforms for dynamics of design. The platform has an amphitheatre like form where you walk down into the platforms. This is done because of the level difference. The footpath constantly is falling downhill and to have a flat platform resulting such form.