Respectful arts centre renovation retains historic aura

Project: St George's Performing Arts Centre, St Michael’s Grammar School
Award: Bronze, Publicly Accessible Interiors - Historic, 2024
Location: Victoria, Australia
Design Practice: Kneeler Design Architects
Client: St Michael's Grammar School

The St George’s Performing Arts Centre, St Michael's Grammar School, by Kneeler Design Architects (KDA) is the result of the adaptive reuse of the heritage-listed St George’s Uniting Church in Victoria, Australia. Serving as an auditorium for St Michael’s Grammar School since 2014, the dilapidated space had severe functional limitations.

The judges said: "It is amazing to see how, with just a few appointed strokes, the space was able to transform functionally, while completely maintaining the aura of the historic building and the veil of the overall visual affect."

KDA engaged with school staff and students throughout the design process to ensure the project was grounded in the school's values and met their aims for improved teaching and learning outcomes. A key ambition of the project was to maximise seating numbers yet maintain good sightlines to the stage. KDA worked closely with a heritage consultant, ensuring a balance between heritage and educational objectives.

The judges praised the project's "respectful repurposing" and the way in which it "beautifully highlights the heritage detail to be celebrated".

The design takes the form of strategic insertions and interventions that lightly touch the building fabric, so that the church's spatial and material qualities are preserved. No new openings could be made in the fabric to allow access for machinery or scaffolding, resulting in a complex construction methodology that involved all building components entering through the existing narrow doorways and being assembled within the building. The key intervention—a multifunctional brass 'ingot' cast in the nave—houses tiered seating, a control desk, box office-cum-learning studio, wet bar, storage, and undercroft plant room to maximise the use and value of the limited space. The sides of the 'ingot' are perforated for mechanical ventilation, with the main air intake fan unobtrusively integrated into the existing bell tower. Key heritage features such as the stained glass windows and organ have been expertly restored, while significant joinery elements have  been retained or repurposed as interpretive displays. 

Design highlights

The church's cruciform plan informed the thrust stage configuration—the audience is seated on three sides of the new sprung stage floor that supports a myriad of performance styles. New steelwork, engineered to be suspended from the existing timber roof trusses, support stage machinery, acoustic reflectors, and drapes to allow flexible subdivision of the stage in various configurations.

Careful coordination with services and theatre consultants allowed ductwork and conduits to be mostly concealed in the subfloor space to minimise their visual impact. The integration of cutting-edge audiovisual technologies, including an L-Acoustics L-ISA immersive audio system and modular video wall, overcomes the acoustic and scenographic limitations of the heritage fabric and empowers students to reimagine performing arts in an unconventional theatre environment. 

The judges said: "This is amazing work with consideration to the acoustic requirement and functional needs of the space."

Photo credit: Scott Burrows Photographer