Choreographing Urban Space – A New Theatre for Cork Part 1 Project 2020 Christopher Lucas Dobbin University College Cork | Ireland Cork is a river between two hills. Its iconography is associated with a safe haven, a place of arrival at the end of a journey. The dance of merchant’s ships sailing, mooring and disembarking along its multiple quays and channels has ceased but the city is still defined by its rituals of movement and by the spectacle of its changing landscapes.The project attempts to re-interpret these conditions and choreograph them within the traces and memories of a city centre site currently underutilised. Imagined at an urban scale, spaces are carved by views, sun paths and social behaviours, and look to exploit the environmental benefits of well- organised outdoor spaces in the city.The main structure on the site holds a 200 seat theatre for drama and dance, that seeks a gentle relationship with the River Lee. A deliberately robust plinth elevates this programme and provide civic presence to the public square, while also allowing the theatre to float, should the river Lee decide to claim the land as its own in the future.The theatre project is ultimately the materialisation of a larger urban “mise-en-scene”, where buildings, surfaces and light are all actors in the daily play of the city. Christopher Lucas Dobbin Tutor(s) Nicci Brock John McLaughlin