The Seattle International Film Festival is getting a brand new film center, designed by the folks over at Owen Richards Architects (who are also designing the new Chihuly Exhibition at Seattle Center).
Video courtesy of Owen Richards Architects.
The project, which broke ground in early December, will provide SIFF with the space to further its mission “to create experiences that allow us to discover extraordinary films together.” The new center will include a library, a 100-seat muti-use screening room and lecture hall, and “flex spaces”—a multi-media classroom, exhibition spaces, archives, and offices for SIFF and the Film School.
As the largest international film festival in the country, the space will further solidify SIFF’s place at Seattle Center, where it will move from McCaw Hall to the 11,000-square-foot Alki Room-turned Film Center on the Center grounds. From Owen Richards Architects:
The project transforms an existing 1962 World’s Fair pavilion overlooking Seattle Center’s central fountain plaza and reflects the Center’s commitment to introducing new media arts programming at the heart of the campus. In addition to serving as a year-round media arts education space, the theater is designed to be utilized as a presentation venue for Seattle Center cultural festivals, and will serve as the focus for SIFF’s screen-writers’s salon and education outreach programs. Sustainable design features include energy efficiency upgrades, natural ventilation and daylighting, adaptive reuse of an aging facility, and reuse of historic Cinerama theater seating.
Read more about the SIFF’s new Film Center.