Walthamstow EMD Cinema

Soho Theatre Walthamstow represents the renewal of the former Granada, a Grade II* listed interwar cinema into a vibrant cultural hub for the community. By adapting the cinema’s large auditorium into a more intimate 1,000 capacity venue, with curved stall seating, our design enhances sightlines, and the audience connection with actors onstage, while preserving and restoring the venue’s much-loved heritage interiors. Externally, the original high street frontage, including the building’s Spanish baroque gable and ornate first-storey windows has been reinstated. Inside, a new fly tower supports a larger stage and new dedicated backstage area, while a new street entrance creates greater flexibility, enabling the venue to stage a wider range of productions. The design also allows for a new and enlarged foyer and the addition of community spaces to support a range of cultural and educational activity. The auditorium is insulated and wrapped in durable zinc cladding, and two additional circulation cores on either side of the foyers are designed to improve accessibility and accommodate new, energy efficient heating and cooling systems. Combined with a photovoltaic array on the south facing portions of the roof, the building is set to outperform the original building’s energy performance by 80%. Having stood empty for the last 15 years, the cinema was the subject of a community campaign for its restoration. The project forms the centrepiece of a wider, culturally led regeneration initiative by Waltham Forest.