Geelong Arts Centre Little Malop Street Redevelopment Unveiled

Together with the Victorian government and Geelong Arts Centre team, we are proud to unveil our design for the last stage of the Geelong Arts Centre redevelopment.

Our director Ian McDougall joined The Little Malop Streeet Redevelopment site tour alongside The Premier of Victoria, The Honourable Daniel Andrews MP, Member for Geelong, Chris Couzen, Member for Bellarine, Lisa Neville, Member for South Barwon, Darren Cheeseman, Lend Lease’s Nat Grey, Chair of the GAC Trust, Lesley Alway, and GAC CEO and Creative Director, Joel McGuinness. Photo: Ferne Millen

“Yesterday I went down and announced plans to turn GPAC into the biggest theatre and entertainment space outside of Melbourne.
It’s massive, and it’s beautiful. It’s a sign of where this great city is heading, and a landmark in the making.” —The Hon. Daniel Andrews MP, Premiere of Victoria

The $140 million project, known as the Little Malop Street Redevelopment, will position the building as a visionary hallmark in the city’s cultural precinct. On completion The Geelong Arts Centre will be Australia’s largest regional arts centre, home to a diverse range of performance venues and spaces.

Honouring the precinct’s existing campus-like layout, the building has been envisioned as a series of destinations each with their own design narrative, where new and existing facilities connect via paths from Ryrie Street to Little Malop Street.

Externally, a concrete drape feature runs across the front of the building, complementing a circus Calliope-shaped entrance referencing early histories of travelling performance in Victoria.

Amplifying the voices of the local First Nations community, we worked closely with Wadawurrung artist Kait James, and local First Nations artists Tarryn Love, Gerard Black and Mick Ryan to showcase First Nations stories throughout the campus.

Each of the building’s four levels evokes a different Wadawurrung creation narrative, with Earth and Ochre Country expressed at ground level, ascending to Moonah Forest Country, Sky Country and Night Sky on level four.

The building’s internal layout has been designed as a series of multi-purpose spaces, each lending themselves to a variety of arts, performance and general community uses. This includes a 500-seat theatre that expands to 800 in ‘live gig’ mode, a 250-seat hybrid theatre connected to the Little Malop Street Plaza, and a range of event spaces, including foyers, bars and alfresco dining all of which facilitate diverse community experiences from concerts and exhibitions to festivals and markets.

The Geelong Arts Centre Little Malop Street Redevelopment is due for completion late 2023. Funded by the Victorian Government, the project is being delivered by Geelong Arts Centre, Development Victoria and Creative Victoria, with builders LendLease.