Sacred Heart College is a 120-year-old Catholic, Marist and Champagnat all-boys secondary school set on 60-acres of tree-lined grounds overlooking the Tāmaki Estuary in Auckland’s Glen Innes. The School of Imagination project was conceived in 2010 to provide significant venue spaces to bring the school community together. Connecting performing arts facilities, technical and learning support spaces, the School of Imagination was also designed to extend and enrich creative learning experiences for students.
The first phase in establishing the School of Imagination was replacing a 1950s school hall with a spectacular 1,500-seat auditorium and new 300-person entry foyer. Completed in 2014, the new facility allowed the wider school community to gather for performances, prizegivings, balls and other events for the first time in 30 years.
Located adjacent to Sacred Heart College’s historic chapel, the new structure, with a diamond shaped footprint, echoes the proportions of the existing chapel. Constructed from precast concrete and clad in stone and brick, the design also incorporates timber salvaged from the original school hall, reused within the new auditorium. The auditorium’s interior is lined with timber baffles that serve both acoustic and aesthetic purposes, providing an elegant ambiance to the vast performance space which also benefits from generous natural light along its flanks. From inside, glimpses of the Tāmaki Estuary can be seen through floor-to-ceiling glazed bays that fan out along the flanks of the space, allowing daylight to filter into the auditorium. An impressive folding timber door also connects the auditorium and atrium foyer.
