Let me entertain you

Movie theatres are commonly positioned in main streets or malls, sandwiched between other buildings with little identifying characteristics of their own. For the designers of the new Berkeley cinema complex at Botany Downs, however, a stand-alone site provided an opportunity to create something more adventurous.

Ignite was commissioned to design a flagship building for the new eight-theatre complex. Associate director Jeremy Craig says the form needed to engage the patrons' imagination before they even entered the interior.

"The main challenge was to create a buildingin the midst of a sea of car parks that would have a strong, individual presence," he says. "We wanted to initiate the fantasy experience from the moment patrons approach the cinema complex, by manipulating their perceptions of scale, mass and perspective. This was achieved by an abstract composition of simple mass forms, consisting of big boxes with intersecting angles and planes."

The manipulation of mass and scale is also carried through to the interior of the complex.

For more information, contact Ignite, phone (09) 356 4791. Email: office@ignite-direct.com. Website: www.ignite-direct.com.

Story by: Trendsideas