French architects Manuelle Gautrand Architecture shared with us their new showroom and leisure center design for Cairo, Egypt. The concrete structure consists of connecting circles and spherical cavities that create a flexible interior allowing users to seamlessly flow through different showrooms. “Most of the time, the cars are exhibited like art-pieces on those turning platforms. The entire project is imagined around this monumental way of showing cars,” explained the architects.
More about the showroom and more images after the break.
The mixed-use program includes showrooms for several car brands, cafés, a food court, a media park and two cinemas. “The richness of this program is very interesting, with the potential of giving a vibrant place of attraction to the new district,” explained the architects.
The volume developed as “a vast sculpture of circles and spheres” that creates modules of approximately 80 sqm. These modules can connect to expand the form to create larger showrooms. Brand signatures lay in two horizontal lines of LED, “giving a coloured movement behind the glass façade.” The intersection between such modules holds the circulation spaces, atriums, and visual perspectives through the building.
Since the entire project was conceived as a concrete mass, the “movement of the concrete creates…small interior spaces, which are curved, to propose some privacy dedicated to VIP lounge, media lounge, small cafés, sales spaces.” These smaller rooms are to be lined with different materials of bright colors to emphasize their sharp contrast with the completely white structure.
Exterior images: Manuelle Gautrand Architecture. Interior images: Arthur Couprie.
