December 24, 2013

2013 BOY Winner: Common Space

When is going to the movies like reading? For this 78,500-square-foot cinema, design directors Ajax Law Ling Kit and Virginia Lung took their inspiration from books. At the center of the lobby, the cashiers’ desks appear to be stacks of paper—they’re actually milled solid-surfacing. Posters for the films on show are displayed on tall planes of white powder-coated metal that fan out as if they were pages bound into a movie script. Structural columns are clad in marble with vertical striations evoking the cut pages of a hardback. 

Taking the reference a step further—since paper is made from trees, more often than not—Kit and Lung designed long, skinny, tubular light fixtures that angle down from the ceiling like branches stretching out from a tree. The ceiling is painted black, a color that completely engulfs a hallway off the lobby. Scattered across the inky walls are words in various colors and typefaces: snippets of dialogue from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

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