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Scenario 1 (‘small’)  -  Springfield, Clapton, Hackney  -  Setting for servery/cafe & small exterior screening

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Scenario 2 (‘medium’)  -  The White Building, Hackney Wick  -  Setting for lecture / discussions & small interior screening (panels in closed position)

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Scenario 3 (‘large’)  -  Wood Wharf, Canary Wharf  -  Setting for large exterior screening & gathering

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Competitions / Cultural

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| Floating Cinema 2013 |

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London, UK

2012

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MORE!

 

Built during the Industrial Revolution, Regent’s Canal is deeply embedded in an industrial heritage, a machine to transport goods. The Floating Cinema should be part of this historical lineage, not in the sense of decorative surface treatments alluding to an aesthetisation of the industrial past, but in the deep sense of its own operations, its inner logic. Our proposal for the 2013 edition of the Floating Cinema is therefore a machine of sorts, a mobile floating platform/hub enabling a wide range of social events to take place along Regent’s Canal.

 

The format of the narrowboat can not effectively cater to the needs of the Floating Cinema. The interior of the narrowboat is a decidedly internal and domestic affair, whereas the Floating Cinema is a public realm requiring both intimate and expansive spaces. The spaces are too small and narrow to be properly used and the connection with the quayside is minimal, if not non-existent. Central to our proposal is a need to overcome these narrow confines: to horizontally and vertically expand and open up, to produce something that is more than its individual components.

 

Thus, the narrowboat is conceived as a hull carrying a platform on which events can unfold, a base from which the quayside can temporarily be colonised. The Floating Cinema is expanded to become a real social hub.

 

The proposal generates a vast variety of spatial forms and formats, a programmatic expansion of opportunities. The Floating Cinema enables not only cinema screenings, but also discussions, lectures and parties. The Floating Cinema enables a wide range of events - but what really is at the core of the proposal is the effect these events potentially can produce: opportunities for social interaction and potentially, by extension, social change.      

 

As integral part of Regent’s Canal’s industrial heritage the Floating Cinema is indeed a machine producing the immateriality of social interaction. Through the reversal of a material to an immaterial production the industrial past is, via the present, stretched and projected towards the future. It is not about allusion and representation. The Floating Cinema is what it is. It is ontological.

 

More is More.

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To achieve disabled access on a narrowboat is by default a futile endeavour. By extending the Floating Cinema out onto the quayside, however, it is possible to provide disabled access to much of the Floating Cinema, making it an entirely open and inclusive set-up.

 

Each element is conceived as a structurally and functionally independent entity. That way it is easy to service and replace parts of the Floating Cinema without compromising the whole. It is also a sustainable approach in that each element can be completely reused for other purposes once the Floating Cinema has ceased to operate.

 

All elements are based on a one-size-fits-all-approach, a self-similar geometry that ensures a minimum of elements are used to create a maximum of various spatial configurations.

 

At several layers the Floating Cinema embraces accumulation, growth/contraction and adaptation. It is very much a process based proposal in which process and journey are deeply intertwined.

As the Floating Cinema is a form of assemblage consisting of different elements it is important, as a counter point, to work with a uniform colour in order to ensure the Floating Cinema is legible as one consistent and coherent unit. Apart from creating a festive atmosphere and alluding to the excitement of cinemas and theatre houses, the uniform use of the red colour is also a means to achieve this formal unity.

 

Our proposal is deeply embedded in, and indeed foresees, the idea of a bankside docking station. As such the Floating Cinema can be seen as veritable test-bench for future developments.

 

The three scenarios are outline proposals suggesting three of many potential settings, configurations and uses.

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Following an enthusiastic and international response to the brief, The Architecture Foundation and UP Projects are delighted to announce the architects shortlisted for the Floating Cinema 2013 design competition.

 

The four chosen practices are:

 

Duggan Morris (London)

Nilsson Pflugfelder (Berlin / London)

OBRA (New York / Beijing)

vPPR (London)  

 

Representatives from UP Projects, Somewhere, The Legacy List and The Architecture Foundation selected the shortlist. The shortlisted practices will now be given the opportunity to workshop ideas with the Floating Cinema lead artists Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie before preparing a response to the full design brief. The jury panel will announce the winner in September as part of The London Design Festival.

 

The competition is looking for an innovative and creative design solution that embodies UP Projects’ 2013 theme of the "Extra-Ordinary”, offering delight and playfulness as well as being robust and serviceable for a permanent life span on the water. The vessel needs to accommodate intimate on-board film screenings, larger outdoor film events as well as a base for film-related talks and activities.

 

The completed cinema will take to the waters of East London in Summer 2013, connecting the boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest and Hackney with the new Olympic Park, and will host a series of public events, activities and tours.

 

Floating Cinema 2013 has been commissioned by The Legacy List and funded by Bloomberg as part of the Bloomberg East series of artist-led programmes to animate the waterways in East London working in partnership with the Canal and River Trust.

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www.architecturefoundation.org.uk

www.upprojects.com

www.somewhere.org.uk

www.floatingcinema.info