Floating cinema sets sail in London for the summer season

Duggan Morris Architects has joined forces with British arts organization, UP Projects to launch this year’s "Floating Cinema," which will be gracing the waterways of East London until the end of September. For the project, Duggan Morris created an award winning design that converted a barge into a floating cinema.

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This year’s Floating Cinema is an upgrade from UP Projects’ original floating movie house that was launched back in 2011 but took a break in 2012 for the Olympics. Powered by a hybrid engine that runs on biofuel, the new floating cinema is currently touring the London urban waterways while hosting a range of summer events, including outdoor screenings, canal tours, talks and workshops.

The above-deck projection suite sits within a semi opaque cubic structure and is illuminated during evening film sessions. In addition to a small onboard movie theater, films are also projected from within the cubic cabin onto an exterior fixed surface, allowing more Londoners to enjoy an open air motion picture experience while taking advantage of the warm summer evenings.

The onboard auditorium is equipped with the projection equipment, audio-visual systems and a small movie theater for intimate floating screenings or events. And if you can’t make it to a specific event, worry not, live broadcasting of certain events and screenings will be streamed live on the Floating Cinema website.

UP Projects’ Floating Cinema is not the only floating movie theater in action at the moment. London based Floating Films is a film club that is located aboard the SB Repertor, a classic 1920’s Thames sailing ship. Currently docked at the St Katherine’s Docks in London, the ship screens a range of films in its intimate 40-seat indoor theater.

Meanwhile, the Archipelago Cinema, located off the coast of Yao Noi, Thailand is a more exotic version of the floating outdoor cinema. The project was launched last year during the Film on the Rocks Yao Noi Festival, combining a large floating projection screen and a floating raft. Lucky patrons are escorted by boat to the romantic floating cinema that could lay claim to being the most picturesque movie theater in the world.