everything works on the contrary. architecture grows underground. water falls towards the sky.
evaporation
The change of a liquid into a vapor at a temperature below the boiling point.
...steam, light, blur, intimacy are found together on the traditional Hammam and these are exported to CISTERNA to configure a scheme where these elements have a main presence and invade the space...
ALL STEAMED UP!
BUILDING AND CITY ARE MIXED TOGETHER. ROOF IS FLOOR. FLOOR IS ROOF. PEDESTRIANS CROSS THE ROOF AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS BELOW. THE CLOUD DOWNSIDE VISITS THE SURFACE AND MEETS THE CITY ATMOSPHERE.
THIS FEELS LIKE HOME
WELCOME
THE WHOLE PLACE IS WRAPPED BY A TILING PATTERN WHICH PROVIDES A UNIQUE SENSE OF DOMESTICITY.
TOPOGRAPHY DETERMINES ALL ASPECTS REGARDING PRIVACY AND AMBIENTS. VISIBILITY IS THE NEW PARTITION ELEMENT. SPACES ARE VIRTUALLY CLOSED BY THE HUMAN’S SENSES. THE STEAM CLOUD ALSO INFLUENCES ON THE SPACE PERCEPTION.
MOVABLE PLATFORMS DETERMINE DIFFERENT SPACE CONFIGURATIONS. THE PROGRAM EVOLVES ACCORDING THE NECESSITIES.
“We return to the resting room to spend our last minutes queueing for water again, shampooing ourselves, me rinsing henna paste out of Hannaan's hair, and finally throwing some buckets of cold water over our bodies. By the time I feel almost accepted by the female crowd, we have to leave the wet heat, back to the dressing room.�
LIKE CELLS JOINING AND DIVIDING, SPACES ARE CONSTANTLY CHANGING AND SO THEIR PERCEPTION IS.
‘Cisterna’ project is a meeting point among all Mediterranean culture which is set up based on the elements that define the traditional Tunisian Hammam. The steamy and wet atmosphere, along with its spaces characterized by level gaps and domesticity by the use of the tile, find a place in ‘Cisterna’ to configure a space aimed for cultural training wrapped in an underground cloud. The building is framed in Tunisia’s capital city, more concise in Place de la Liberté. This is a fully significant location as constitutes the meeting point between the old traditional city, Medina, and the modern city expansion, taking Avenue Bourguiba as main axis. The piece is situated below ground so at the same that generates an inside program, there is an intervention on the urban landscape of the square and proposes a constant visual interaction between what is happening in the street and interior as for the glass surface that serves as a roof for the building. On the lowest level of the building, there is the massive water sheet that grows a steam cloud out of the water’s high temperature. The cloud wraps the program underground and gets released to street level thanks to certain openings on the glass roof. This way, the interior cloud spreads to the urban space, escapes and invades the square. On the upper level, at street line, the building roof that serves as a new urban space for the city is proposed. This roof has a main structural level which is in charge of supporting the cables that support the tiles’ boards and slabs. These slabs are also partly supported on the perimeter walls so forces are decreased in the cable structures. A second structural level is used for supporting the glazing panels of the roof. Under the horizontal structure that holds the program, there is the water sheet that generates the cloud. This is the origin of the steamy mass that goes over the building by effect of evaporation and also takes part of the cityscape. Wet areas are planned to be facing the perimeter walls and so be able to place the water pipes and other facilities on the gap between wall layers. Grey water is planned to end up in a deposit to be reused by the water sheet and consider a safe on the necessary resources for the cloud to come to reality. The program is divided into three areas which are visually connected. The restaurant area has its own access from the commercial part of the square, so it participates of the existing configuration of the square. There is a total lack of partition walls so privacy is determined by the heights of the platforms that hold each space. The main entrance leads to a massive arm that hold big multipurpose platforms whose topography configures the spaces, being possible to arrange up to three events at the same time. From this big arm, there is a hanging platform that goes down until the bottom level where the administrative and direction area is located. The piece is thought in a way that the program itself is developed in the topography, being all a same area but leaving a certain hierarchy between spaces. On the program and its visuals and privacy is essential the relationship with the cloud as this works as views diffuser and provides a higher grade of independency or privacy between the diversity of the program.