Santa Maria College, an independent Catholic primary and secondary school for girls located in the Perth suburb of Attadale, has opened its new Cultural Centre.

Designed by Architectus and built to meet the school’s current and future needs, the new facility includes a 642-seat theatre, as well as a dance studio with a fully sprung floor, a flexible 140-seat black box theatre, a green room that doubles as a classroom and back-of-house areas.

Each space has been designed for maximum flexibility as a setting for teaching and gathering. The Cultural Centre will also be used for staff, parent and alumni events.

Set into the College’s steeply sloping grounds, the striking two-level building has a single-pitch roof and steps down the hill, creating a more modest profile to neighbouring homes on the south while offering a triple-height connection to existing buildings on the north.

Located behind the historic McAuley building, it draws on the College’s village-like campus character for its design inspiration.

Sweeping colonnades of pumice-pigmented precast concrete offer a nod to the existing verandahs and covered walkways, while the two terracotta-toned theatre volumes in ribbed aluminium reference both the folds of a theatre curtain and surrounding terracotta roof tiles.

According to Architectus Associate Edward Hicks, the project provided a unique opportunity to create both a landmark building and a more coherent campus.

“The Cultural Centre anchors a new spine through the campus – a Knowledge Walk that students and staff will move along every day,” says Hicks.

“It’s a building you will pass through as much as you will visit, stitching together the school’s history, its daily life and its future growth.”

Public art by Santa Maria College alumna Ellen Norrish is woven through the entrance spaces.

Drawing on the school’s archives and local stories, and developed in consultation with a First Nations representative, her hand-drawn studies of historical and landscape objects have been translated into delicate etchings that trace their way along circulation routes and reveal elements of the College’s history over the decades.

The completed Cultural Centre represents the first part of a campus masterplan that introduces an east-west pedestrian axis along the southern edge of the site.

Architectus won a design competition in 2021 to deliver the Cultural Centre. Now complete, it sets the tone for future College development.

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