Media Centre Part 2 Project 2007 Adam Thurston De Montfort University | UK The overall aim of the outline regeneration plan is to create an urban quarter for the digital media sector in Leeds that not only can be inhabited by those locally but will provide a place for people of all backgrounds, ethnicity and age to network. The main concept for the building is an elaboration on the notion of a “corridor” and the fact that it is the most commonly used space in an office building. Inverting the corridor to the exterior increases the chance of interaction and allows the exchange of ideas and information to flow more freely. Adam is exploring an aggressive, consciously banal anti-beauty that in some ways is an analogue of those colourless, brutal 1970s concrete monstrosities that terrify bien-pensants everywhere. Adam might not agree, but I see his gaunt, forbidding building as poetic architecture intended to be confrontational and mysterious, not pretty or pleasant. Consisting of a concrete core with a continuously spiralling ramp, it contains media studios, editing suites, and associated functions for some sinister organisation. From outside you cannot tell what goes on inside; this is a building with something to hide. I find it menacing and exciting, like film noir.