A Miller/MEPC joint venture appointed Conran & Partners to draw up detailed proposals for a 40,000sqm ‘urban entertainment complex’ on derelict land east of Glasgow ’s St Enochs shopping centre. The complex comprised a 20-screen cinema and supporting retail and restaurant/bar space arranged around a spectacular top-lit atrium. To the rear of the site, two 700-space multi-storey carparks formed an integral part of the building.

The form of the building was set by the rectilinear arrangement of the cinema screens on the uppermost level. The confrontation between this geometry and the surrounding urban grain created a series of stepped returns along Osborne Street to the north and Howard Street to the south. This 'layering' has the effect of breaking down the perspective of the streetscape, an effect accentuated by cladding the individual cinema ‘pods’ in a series of different materials relating to the adjacent urban context – red sandstone, patinated copper, zinc sheeting, metallic blue powder-coated aluminium. The car park was clad with a layers of solid and perforated metal sheet, mesh, and louvres, incorporating poster sites and screens for projection of images.