At the end of the London Festival of Architecture 2013 in late June the repurposed barge will take to East London’s waterways with a new programme of screenings, performances, talks and tours, curated by Somewhere. The theme this year, titled Extra-Ordinary, will encompass a diverse range of events, including an Industrial History Tour of the Lea Valley hosted by Channel 4 presenter Brendan Walker, a Laugh I Nearly Drowned comedy tour on the Regent’s Canal, a 24-hour Horror Screening and a talks programme curated in partnership with The Architecture Foundation. Somewhere will also be commissioning new work including a new film competition produced with BRITDOC, and a live art performance project in partnership with the Live Art Development Agency.
Blueprint featured the Cinema in our February issue, describing how the new boat will pick up on Studio Weave’s 2011 project on the canals of East London. A crowd-funded project (see January’s Blueprint) which recently raised over £11, 000, Floating Cinema Extra-Ordinary draws on rich industrial history from the Lea Valley, instilling the boat with a particular sense of place. More recently culture has replaced industry flowing along the historic lifelines of London, a movement Duggan Morris’ cinema will consolidate.
Beginning with an old hull, Duggan Morris is in the process of producing a vessel, materially referencing the types of floating craft used on the waterways. The boat gathers around a central ‘square’ focussed around a ‘street lamp’ which extends the public realm of the towpath on board. On one side of the square sits the cinema room and on the other a brass-clad cafe, kiosk and toilet. Using the telescopic ‘lamp’ the boat will be used exploratively connecting communities via film – recording and disseminating novel ways to use film and screen in the public realm being able to project onto passing objects, the water and tunnel roofs. The new design also features an AV system designed by the Useful Arts Organisation which comprises a 24-hour webcam linked to the Floating Cinema website, projection equipment and broadcasting capabilities allowing a home audience to join in on events and screenings.
The cinema is inspired by ribbed forms of art deco picture house interiors and the paper thin skins stretched over timber wing frames of early aircraft (flown nearby on Walthamstow marshes). The skin covering the 12-seater cinema will create a silhouette shadow theatre performance for onlookers, making use of traditional cinema letters to advertise screenings on the exterior. The brass utility box will reflect the light, colour and tones of the film being shown and will be etched with typographies and patterning of traditional boats and life on the waterways.
Duggan Morris Architects recently won Judges’ Special Recognition Award at the 2013 Architectural Review Future Projects Awards; the practice has made extensive use of recycling and repurposing materials for the Cinema, which will run on bio-fuel.
