European Film Center CAMERIMAGE (ECFC) Building in Toruń (PL)

Idea
Through its nature, the European Camerimage Film Center building is going to become a benchmark on a global scale. At the same time, it is crucial to create a place bustling with life with various cultural activities serving the inhabitants of Toruń city.
The idea of the building sets itself a goal to create a place that is a complex and coherent answer for every factor of the environment affecting the plot. An urban context of the Old Town together with the greenery ring of the city and complex program assumptions lead us to propose a concept that is authentic, inspiring and unique. The building has to become scenery for significant international events while remaining an open and available place for locals.
To use all the advantages of the surrounding greenery, the building of the European Camerimage Film Center avoids being a massive form. Mass of the structure was divided into several, independent cubic elements that naturally coexist with the urban context of the plot. As the building avoids being massive it helps to 'humanize' the scale of itself. Dividing the structure into several forms created a clear division of the functional program and made it more flexible.
Cubic-shaped buildings were placed to make a harmonic composition that creates informal and unexpected areas. Those areas can be explored by the user both from the inside and outside of the complex.
The open structure of the building connects the areas of the square, greenery ring and intimate spaces that flow through designed buildings. Cubic forms are connected by the so-called 'green dome' that is a functional communication area. The flow of the people is divided into two levels. Inside flow underneath the dome and outside flow on the first level. Those design decision makes the building well fitted into surrounding nature and more open for the city areas. The meadow that covers the roof of the dome optically and functionally allows integrating the areas of the plot into the existing green city ring surrounding the plot. That makes the building equally open both for the inhabitants and participants of cultural events.
Taking into consideration the film character of the institution that is going to take place inside, We designed large light openings in a proportion of film formats (4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1,85:1, 2,39:1). Because of the composition of the cubic buildings, they are the frames that concentrate on different views of the city of Toruń.
P2PA Sp. z o.o.
Authors: Marcin Bieńka – OFFROOM
Aleksander Blicharski
Paweł Floryn
Jakub Podgórski
Maciej Popławski

Visualisations: Piotr Banak

Acustic and technological solutions: Kajetan Krztoń