one plus partnership's cinema in wuhan evokes a bustling cityscape

wushang dream mall international cinema: a city-inspired design

Earlier this year, One Plus Partnership completed a spellbinding design for the Wushang Dream Mall International Cinema in Wuhan, China. Stepping into the main lobby, visitors get the impression of entering a stone-clad city worth exploring. Irregularly boxed shapes, slanted surfaces, and weft lines expand from floor to ceiling to create an impressive matrix alluding to the bustling outline of skyscrapers, as seen from a distance in any big metropolis. Some of these ‘boxes’ are designed as seating; others are used as space dividers to distinguish between different functional areas, while parts of the wall function as a guide and backdrop for the circulation path. On the other hand, the ticket office and counter bar are entirely open, following the outline of a ‘road network’, with slow or sharp ramps forming the separation of different functional areas, giving more space to customers, just like a free and open city, where the audience can sit around and talk freely.

all images courtesy One Plus Partnership

engulfing the space with dimmed lighting and stone patterns

The overall atmosphere of the Wushang Dream Mall International Cinema appears quite dimmed and intimate. The team at One Plus Partnership opted for luminaires that are creatively concealed, allowing only straight gaps between ‘boxes’ to be illuminated and thus creating a striking light and dark contrast that travels through space, like the flowing and shining streets in cities. As for the choice of materials, One Plus Partnership opted for a stone of different colors and textures, a central element in urban architecture. ‘This approach is not just a matter of choosing the stone itself, but of borrowing the varied and unique patterns that stone forms in nature and working it into metal panels, fabrics, carpets, and other different materials,’ notes the practice.

Considering the building’s initial load and cost control, the team transferred the stone patterns to metal material to reduce the ceiling’s weight, ensuring consistent alignment and texture and better safety and economic security. To create a realistic stone pattern effect on various materials, the architects spent nearly one preparing and proofing, making it impossible to tell the difference between real and fake stone.

irregular shapes and slanted surfaces allude to bustling cityscapes

one plus partnership brings immersive auditoriums to the cinema

Consistent with the lobby design is the main auditorium, where orange-brown and red stone patterns, processed into sound-absorbing material, dominate the visual language. Here, 1:1 stone patterns are marked on fabrics and prepared in advance as nearly a thousand different layouts for printing, ensuring no duplication of motifs and the effective extension of the natural texture across the space.

Other auditoriums sport a combination of dark blue stone and brown stone patterns. This design choice will hopefully enrich emotions conveyed by the film as a way to express the city’s bustle and passion. ‘The auditoriums give a sense of neatness and clear lines, just like the layout of a perfectly planned city. However, within such a regular framework, people have their own unique life paths, are part of the city, and make the city a colorful storytelling place. There are thousands of ways to live a life, and everyone is the leading role of their colorful life movie,’ concludes the practice.

cladding the interiors in stone patterns