MITIGATING THE MACHINE
Master of Architecture (MArch) 2017 - The University of Lincoln
Part 3
Response
This design, which illustrates the culmination of a nine month design project, seeks to test the thesis (see part 1) that our experience of the urban environment does not currently represent an honest expression of the various spatial networks that enable these spaces to exist. The proposal theorises that, by unifying the environments of production and consumption, architecture may be able to provide a crucial feedback loop that will allow us to identify and mitigate the impending global climate crisis.
The primary function of the project is that of a thermal bath house, offering a moment of respite from the chaos of city life to reflect upon the importance of their water supply and to recognise the complexity, and by extension the fragility, of the network that delivers this vital resource to the city. This reflection would be encouraged through the meditative ritual of bathing, which is enhanced through the qualities of space provided by an architecture that emphasises the movement of water. As with the ancient thermaes of Rome the project employs a combination of scale, texture and hierarchy, as well as ritual and ceremony, to detach visitors from their everyday lives in order to focus on the immediate experience of space.
The methodology employed was informed by an in-depth analysis of the wider spatial network that the project hopes to draw attention to. In this case, this was the New York City water supply. I applied the mapping techniques that I had developed to analyse the network onto the building programme to tease out and exhibit elements of the bath house that would often be 'back of house', such as water collection, steam generation and the transition between the two states. This emphasis on state change is most explicit where the external network (NYC steam) interfaces with the project, utilising a series of nets to capture water droplets within the steam as it is exhausted as a celebration of this hidden infrastructure. The collected water is then channelled through to the various pools across the project and the required heat is provided by the existing steam network.
A combination of pre-cast concrete panels, structrual steel framing and metal rainscreen facade systems would form the majority of construction details for this project. The finer detail is reserved for the surface treatment, which has been designed to respond to the volitility of the water network that flows through the scheme. In the warmer areas, defined by steam, the texture of the concrete would be rough cast to provide harsher textures. As the steam is 'tamed' and channelled through the project as water the textures would soften to illustrate this change in state.
Whilst the project is solely conceptual, the research that informs my approach explores the relationship between people and place. By recognising the potential of the built environment to re-define our perspective on the natural world, I hope to develop an architectural process that could ultimately be used to address the impacts that global conumer cultures are having on our climate.
Part 3 of 3
