Lightroom, 2023

Lightroom is a new immersive venue in London’s Kings Cross, capable both of exhibiting and provoking innovative digital work. A collaboration with performance design specialists 59 Productions in partnership with London Theatre Company, Lightroom is envisaged as a sister space to the Bridge Theatre. The project has required a very high degree of technical coordination and careful acoustic design to ensure that the space can respond to successive artists’ imaginations and allow maximum creative possibility. At its heart is a huge, subterranean exhibition volume (18.5W x 26L x 12H metres) with a capacity of up to 380 people in promenade. State of the art sound and projection systems enable artists to transform the space, which is approached gradually via linear acclimatisation zones from the arrival foyer and bar at street level on Lewis Cubitt Square. The foyer interior uses a similar visual language to the Bridge, with warm timber floors, a cloud of paper lanterns, a central timber staircase down to the show space and in this case a dramatic, copper coloured wall to signify the exhibition room beyond. Themes of compression, provisionality and contrasting light levels have been consistent explorations for Haworth Tompkins since the Royal Court in 2000, the studio’s first completed performance venue. ADDRESS LEWIS

“Combining...deep architectural knowledge, meaningful sustainable outlook and beautiful material sensibility, with the story-focussed and technically inventive design team at 59, has resulted in a space I cannot wait to welcome our audience into.”