| Summary: | A modern large recreational hall may hardly recognize a sense of human scale nor provide
users the architectural meaning corresponding to the activities it accommodates. The
experimental project of renovating the Vancouver Aquatic Center attempts to reinstate the
relationship between the body, water and architecture.
There exist certain sequence and pattern in participating various leisure/fitness activities
which require mental and physical preparation. I focus on accentuating the transitional
experiences at different stages of taking part swimming, diving, and hot baths by creating
spaces to allow mental readiness for activities and contemplation of experience. Thus, I
explore the perception of edges by marking of different threshold, making it subtle or
bringing it out into presence. This practice requires much envision of walking through the
building and anticipation of how space to be used which corresponds to my study of history of
bathing and questions of perception.
In order to reintroduce the social value of bathing which exists in Japanese bath and the like, I
expand the facilities program parallel to the concept of Roman Thermae where people can
meet and interact. Therefore, the proposed new aquatic centre seeks to enhance social and
visual communication between the surrounding environment and the building, between users
outside and inside, between different activities within the building.
Moreover, initiated by the study of phenomenological architecture, this project revolves
around the idea of intriguing memories and emotions through associative and tactile
experience by the use of materials, spatial configuration, lighting, transparency and the
placement of apertures to capture views. I try to provide diversified experience with different
forms of water, steam, hot/cold temperatures, brightness/darkness, hard/soft land,
submerge/emerge, clear/opaque and other perception of space. The ultimate goal of this
experiment is to provide users the meanings of the architectural form, space, material and
order, yet as well give potential to allow the users' own interpretations. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of === Graduate
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