Cashmere High School McCombs Performing Arts Centre

The building has been designed with a focus on learning, while ensuring that the spectacle of the theatre is not lost. A central foyer space connects to a lantern-like stair, clad in gold sunshades, feeding into the auditorium itself. The auditorium was designed in close collaboration with the school which has led to a space tuned towards un-amplified and choralmusic.

Students, staff, management and the school’s Kahui were closely involved in the development of the building. In reference to the school’s name Te Iringa o Kahukura – which refers to Kahukura, the God of the Rainbow, who hangs his korowai over the hills of Cashmere the foyer incorporates a subtle rainbow (kahukura). The carpet design was developed to reference the waterways which surround, and historically ran through thecampus.