PROFESSOR

Ana Morcillo Pallares

STUDIO THEME

Despite the material and technological similarities shared with their adult-sized counterparts, the traditional movie theater experience is still largely geared towards the adult audience. But why is it that children do not have their own cinemas? Far from a scaled down version of a movie theater, a cinema for a young audience needs to respond more sensibly to the more specific set of needs. Children are very different from adults. They are easily distracted, with a limited concentration span, and keeping them engaged for extended periods of time is a challenge. According to the individual and their age, some children struggle to sit quietly in a traditional cinema's environment, where silence is expected, and the audience needs to sit still as long as the movie is rolling. Families do not often enjoy their first experiences together at the movie theater, where parents spend more time attending to their children than to the screen.

Building on the lack of flexibility found within the traditional movie theater, this section invites students to reflect on the unique set of needs of a young audience, not only physical, but cognitive, social development and behavioral. The studio will look for imaginative tweaks, when individual elements, details, materials, and programs in an ensemble are thought differently. In an adult-focused environment, is there still room for kids? How can children reconcile themselves with the movie theater through architecture? Can we revert the legacy of the opulent movie palace towards a more ambivalent and playful institution? Can we change our myopic vision of inclusion and functionality? What if spaces were things kids could take apart, put together, and build into their stories?