The St George’s Performing Arts Centre is the result of the adaptive reuse of the heritage-listed St George’s Uniting Church in St Kilda, Victoria. Originally designed by architect Albert Purchas and completed in 1880, the church was purchased by St Michael’s Grammar School in 2014 to serve as an auditorium, albeit with severe functional limitations—the space was poorly ventilated and lit, while the church interior, designed for sermons and choirs, was ill-suited to the acoustic and spatial needs of modern productions.
Kneeler Design Architects engaged with 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. We worked closely with a heritage consultant to develop the design in accordance with the Burra Charter process and Heritage Victoria guidelines, ensuring a balance between heritage objectives and the school’s educational objectives.
The design takes the form of strategic insertions and interventions that lightly touch the building fabric to preserve the church’s spatial and material qualities, particularly the proportions and detailing of the nave and transept. No new openings could be made in the fabric to allow access for machinery or scaffolding, resulting in a complex construction methodology. 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 supply and return air, with the main air intake fan unobtrusively integrated into the existing bell tower. Additional insertions house services and amenities or improve wayfinding and accessibility. Key heritage features like the stained glass windows and organ were professionally restored, while significant joinery elements were retained or repurposed as interpretive displays. Washroom and change facilities are provided through prefabricated relocatables and a covered walkway set back from the existing building, ensuring that the principal façade remains dominant from the street.
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. The integration of cutting-edge audiovisual technologies, including an 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 built outcome remains a recognisably ecclesiastical space while providing a visually exciting, immersive theatrical atmosphere for audience and performers alike, honouring the building’s past while equipping it to help shape present and future generations of performing arts talent.
