Location - Riga, Latvia

Client - Latvian Ministry of Culture

Our Role - Architect, Visualisation

Project Value - Competition

Organised by the Latvian Ministry of Culture, Latvian Academy of Culture and the Danish Cultural Institute, TabFab invited sketch designs to regenerate a former tobacco factory. rg+p’s design aimed to bring the building back to life; showing the factory becoming a school of performing arts, school of filmography, museum, library and creative business incubator.

Drawing inspiration from theatre mechanics, the design included ‘interventions’ with a sense of semipermanence and light boxes reminiscent of those used in filmography. With so many different users of the site, the movement of people was key. The ‘light-box’ interventions emphasised the links between the different buildings, allowing the development to read as one cohesive scheme.

17 entries from across the world were submitted and rg+p was highly commended, receiving an Incentive Award. The practice was the only entry from the UK to achieve this commendation.