This project seeks to address the environmental shortcomings of the existing Cinema and the poor access to its front entrance by reinstating an appropriate urban presence for such a major city icon. The proposed introduction of the non-axial entrance ramp and dynamically located off-axis inhabited ‘boxes’, serve to replace the old monumentality with a new inclusive attitude, breaking down boundaries between public and private space, integrating the re-animated Cinema into the lively civic space.
The existing glazing is replaced with a high performance glazed curtain wall, with a further outer glazed curtain wall added to create a full length lobby on the south-east and south-west faces. This arrangement creates a thermal buffer, reducing heat losses in winter and controlling heat gain in summer. The outer glazing incorporates solar control coatings to minimise direct solar gain and contains extensive planting to further shade the inner glazing. The new glazing has vents at both low and high levels to provide controlled ventilation to the buffer space, with a heat exchanger at the head and controlled ducting into the inner lobby. The internal suspended planters are supported from a lightweight steel structure, also supporting the glazing, and are clad with DuPont ‘Corian’ to give an abstract, monolithic effect enhancing their floating quality.
Within the new double skin facade, a number of new spaces are created, each within a simple, distinctive coloured box. Apart from the protected entrances, these spaces add new bars, cafes and restaurant looking back over Pushkin Square, adding new day-long uses to the building and providing animation to the facade by projecting out of the building envelope. The boxes utilise the DuPont ‘Alestra’ powder coatings to provide vibrant colours. The North-side facade is over-clad with a DuPont ‘Corian’ rainscreen to increase the fabric’s thermal insulation yet retaining the auditorium’s shape.