BA in Architecture - Final Year Project

UCA, Canterbury, Kent, UK 2012

Fiatal

Budapest | Dark days, Chilly nights
University for the Creative Arts - Project submission at RIBA president medal awards 2012 (weblink)

    Water, the element that gives you life, can also keep you young. It is a multi-functional element that can generate a better quality of life. At the beginning of our life cycle the human embryo is enclosed within water. Our needs and life processes are “controlled” by this element, which is found in all that surrounds our cosmos. Seas, rivers, lakes and rain. Due to its pureness water is also difficult to appreciate. It is an element that we take for granted. 
    Budapest is a city built on several water springs and water caves. Water has always been used on citizens and visitors of this city, for treatment purposes such as the treatment of skin diseases and rheumatism. Therefore water has to be provided for users in a way that respects, recognises and understands its abilities.

    The journeys played out in this project create spaces in which to experience two forms of water, gas and liquid, through our five senses. Water is pumped from underground and then naturally filtered to produce drinking water. Also, the same pumped water is boiled and evaporated. Salts are collected and then taken by the guest for personal use or they are used for cosmetics and skincare at the baths. The routes formed through the external environment of the building clarify the various forms of consumption of the spring water. 
    The baths are designed to provide moments of socialisation and different treatments. Volumes getting in or going out of the baths and cuts providing the space with light, from the top ceiling; are techniques to create a monumental atmosphere. 
    The waterfall runs from the top of the Glass Box (Water Monument) through the whole of exterior and interior of the building. This creates the gas form (steam) through changes in temperature. 
    Consequently water becomes the connection between the two properties of the building project and the steam created fills the ‘Monument’ (Glass Box) creating an exosphere for the visitor to hear, see, touch, taste, smell the purity of water.

    Materials, colours, textures and multi level changes, have been incorporated with nature, in an ethical manner.