Think of the last time that you were voyeuristically strolling by a window and there flickered the faint light from a television projected onto the walls and ceiling. You wanted to know what they were watching. You wanted to see it yourself. We captured the essential lost mystique of this cinematic experience as a contemporary system of structure and light. The design team experimented with a methodology to activate both the space and the patrons, so that the static forms of architecture took on a kinetic depth in this 31,000 sq.ft., nine-screen cinema. To this we added the typically banal mechanisms of a cinema: the compressors, the projectors, the ductwork… but augmented them to be part of the spectacle.











PROJECT: lake stevens cinema
CLIENT: act iii cinemas / regal cinemas
LOCATION: lake stevens, snohomish county, washington
BUDGET: $3,072,510 projected, $99 / sq.ft.
SIZE: 31,000 sq.ft., 9 screens
TEAM: wph architecture inc. fredrick h. zal, james walker, brian laramee
kpff consulting engineers, interface engineering, pacific lightworks llc.
DATE: 1998