PREMISE

The history of drive-in theatres goes back to the 1910s as a solution for people not being comfortably seated in the tiny seats in the traditional theatres. The famous catchphrase which shone the spotlight over the idea of drive-ins was created by the patentee.
“The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are.”

Drive-in’s lost their charm for various reasons such as oil prices rising along with alternative and better ways to watch a movie at high-end theatres or at home on DVDs.

As the pandemic has made its presence more obvious and ominous, and for a considerably long time for humans to go without work or recreation, people violating the lockdown are becoming the new normal, and even if things went back to normal, we’d need a safer alternative to closed theatres.

BRIEF

After almost 40 years the people of Saudi Arabia are about to experience cinema, it’s a fresh audience with minds yet to experience conventional methods of cinema and are open to new concepts.

The challenge here is to design a new user experience-based drive-in theatre in the given site for an automobile-centric audience.

The point that people of the locality are open to fresh concepts and experiences can be used to the designer’s advantage and provides an opportunity to explore new horizons of theatre experience. With the ongoing crisis, we must find safer alternatives to return to normal life, and drive-ins are one of those efficient ways.

Drive-in theatres essentially being an open space give a lot of scope for the project’s future expansion as a bigger recreational center too.