South Tenerife Convention Center By AMP Arquitectos, S.L.

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Architect: AMP Arquitectos, S.L.
Location: Playa de las Américas, Adeje, Tenerife, Spain
Collaborator: Andreas Weihnacht (arquitect), Esther Ceballos (arquitect), Ana Salinas (arquitect), Rafael Hernández (master builder), Andrés Pedreño (master builder)
Project year: 2005
Strcutural Engineers: Victor Martínez, Juan José Gallardo
Services Engineers: Milián Associats S.A., Audioscan
Contractor: Congreso U.T.E.
Client: Canarias Congreso Bureau Tenerife Sur
Photographs: Hisao Suzuki & AMP arquitectos
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Sean Connery Filmhouse, Edinburgh | Richard Murphy

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Text from Richard Murphy Architects:

"Our first proposal for a new Filmhouse Centre for the International Film Festival and Scottish Screen Industries was presented to the public at the conclusion of the 2004 International Film Festival and received much publicity. Since then the design has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, but at the same time we have had the opportunity to take on board many of the reactions to the radicalism of the first idea and our client has also had the opportunity to revisit the brief.

The result is an increase in accommodation but a seemingly smaller building! The design now uses much less of the Square than before having a circular plan (in a great historical tradition of circular buildings sitting in open spaces) but has gained a storey above ground and a basement auditorium. From top to bottom the accommodation consists of roof top restaurant and terrace; offices for festival, filmhouse and lettable space; 600 seat auditorium capable of reduction to 300 seats with breakout space/festival film industry space/private hire; four auditoria of 150, 150, 75 and 75 capacity; ground floor bar/cafe, shop and box office; and basement 300 seat auditorium, gallery, WCs etc.

Following on from our design of the cinema at Dundee Contemporary Arts, most of the auditoria have the facility to connect with the outside world before and after a film showing through a variety of hinged and sliding panels giving the exterior a constantly kinetic quality and anchoring the experience of seeing a film into that of being in Edinburgh. In addition, vertical movement is largely visible against the exterior and external cinema screens advertise trailers of films during both day and night.

The placing of the building eccentrically in Festival Square gives a framed view of the entrance of the Sheraton Hotel whilst denying only twenty four percent of the hotel's windows their current castle view. The bar/cafe at ground floor level opens directly onto the sunny side of the square and helps populate what is currently largely the realm of the skateboarder. Approximately on axis with Cambridge Street opposite, it deliberately sits as far forward as possible with a view to reinforcing the concept of a public space stretching from the Usher Hall (with which it has a powerful rhetoric) to the Sheraton. Tentative proposals by the city to traffic calm this section of Lothian Road would greatly enhance this concept."

Architects :Richard Murphy, David Stronge, David Morris, Tom Fuggle
Construction Cost :£17m
Client: Edinburgh Filmhouse and Edinburgh International Film Festival

Multi-Functional Cultural Centre and Art Gallery | The Public | West Bromwich, United Kingdom | Will Alsop

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Architect: Will Alsop
Project Type: Cultural Centers/Art Galleries
Design: 2004
Realization: 2008
Link: www.alsoparchitects.com

Project Description:
The structure, designed to accommodate many initiatives related to local and international art, was conceived as a real "box of wonders" whose role is to encourage creativity. Hence the idea of a multiplicity of spaces, shapes, curvilinear shapes and playful atmosphere.

The black leather of the parallelepiped (113m x 21m x 22m) is countered by the color red strawberry in a series of windows, whose shape evokes the strange softness of Giuggioli. Is the same color as the base of the structure, whose windows allow a view inside. Here the simplicity of the exterior gives way to the complexity of large objects with curvilinear geometry suspended from the ceiling, a series of elevators and a staircase that links the different spaces.

A structure composed of 13 pairs of hollow steel columns filled with concrete support the main floor located on the third level. Here elements of steel that develops a bump, offer support for the cover. The envelope was designed as a self-supporting structure, and thus independent of the primary: "Structurally - Will Alsop says - can be described as a light box which is a series of sculptural forms. These surround the plans that are supported by the main structure of columns in steel and cement. "