This week I focused on developing the entrance. In my previous model, I showed the ramp leading down off of Mount St into the space but I wanted to design the space so that the experience of the bath house begins before entering it. I wanted to explore how I could use plants to initiate the immersion into the bath house. My concept is blurring and manipulating the thresholds between urban and nature. I didn’t want the occupants to go from the urban environment of the city straight into the nature and forest embracing space of the bath house because it wouldn’t fit with my concept. This is why i decided to add plants to gradually immerse the occupants as they travel down into the space from the ramp. I wanted the entrance itself to be an experience.
I wanted to play with the south wall of the basement in the entrance space. In the above sketches I look at extruding floating plant boxes from the wall. I also considered making them glass and act as a window to allow more natural light into the space. I liked this idea but I felt it was too fixed and didn’t have any movement or fluidity to it.
I then drew inspiration from the plant wall that covers the facade of the library in WG building on AUT City Campus. I like how the plants are loose and create a barrier and threshold but is still easily manipulated and moved.
This idea of having hanging plants in my entrance articulates my concept of challenging and blurring threshold points create a flow between the inside and outside world and urban and nature. Having the over hang of the upper levels of the Dadley Building gives me the opportunity to have these plants more free flowing and create more movement within the cold, flat, urban space.
Spatial Design by Ciara 