Filmworks, Ealing

Solution

Set behind the retained historic façade of Ealing’s former Empire Cinema, the £100m mixed-use regeneration scheme comprises 209 new homes overlooking a central square, lined with bars and restaurants, and featuring a double-height entrance foyer to the eight-screen Picturehouse Cinema, the biggest outside London’s West End.

A careful infill within an existing urban block, the scheme has been designed by tp bennett as a contextual response to the surrounding buildings in the conservation areas. Each perimeter facade is designed in a subtly different language, depending on the character of the particular street it is facing. The architectural language changes towards the interior, where the contextual red brick and stone have been complemented with a more contemporary materials palette, including dark blue brick with contrasting green-glazed brick inserts and bronze-coloured cladding laser cut with a distinctive, three-dimensional geometric pattern.

The cinema and the complementary leisure offering are set to become a new centre for Ealing’s wider cultural quarter.