An Experience of the spa This section explores the identity of the spa and the nature in which it encapsulates its occupants.
Site from the west, as the people enter Abingdon over the bridge the are greeted by the spa, looming over the trees.
Entrance to the Spa The entrance to the spa creates an ambiguous atmosphere, there is not path or direct rout, simply five sets of stairs spreading across the landscape, they create a value of exploring the unexplored as what is above the stairs is hidden from below. The spa does not invite you in, it makes you want to go in from the interest of the unknown. The stairway and the buildup towards the machine is the path to the alternate reality that awaits.
The Stairway. A series of entrances to the unknown. This is the beginning of an explorative journey that every person will take to find their space of calm. It is also the first contact with the machine, more specifically for disabled people as they are able to take the stair lift chair, this already brings to light the relationship that arises between the inhabitants and the machine.
Detail highlighting the machine which is able to carry disabled occupants up the stairs.
Service Spaces
Utility room Male changing room Female changing room Kitchen Cloak room The service spaces are spaces of a utilitarian nature, cold materials and metallic spaces, a sense of being in the machine itself as the utility pipelines run throughout the spaces, Yellow - electricity, blue - water, red - air circulation, they hold no notion of the calm atmosphere and the nature of what is to come as the person is put in a sense of false belief.
Female changing room
Cloak room with toilets
The Walkway From the service rooms you find yourself exposed, the walkway to the serviced rooms is a space of changing conditions as it is subject to the weather, this way of allowing nature to become part of the journey is a process of distraction, but in varying ways, people can bask in the sunshine, taking a walk as they float over and within the trees. This subjection to nature also creates an alter harsh reality as rain or cold weather can surround you, forcing you to run to the serviced rooms in search of comfort as the altering realities create an always altering environment.
The serviced spaces The spaces of the dream, each one as individual as the dream itself, as the reality of the calm comes into fruition the occupant finds them self in a world like not other. Spaces of differing light, texture and emotion create an ever changing place based on the people within. This is the space of the dream and the dream it will always be
Plunge pools
Swimming pool
The Running modules The division of the layers becomes prominent in the activities they hold, elevated is a space of calm, below a space of exercise, as runners drift under the structure they have the option to give energy to the building by using the walking machines on the river, running them into the river through a set of gears by the treadmill and allowing the arms to dip into the water. The reality of running not just for yourself, but for the architecture and people around you allows the realisation of the codependency of people and building.
Turkish Baths
Running Modules
An alternate Reality The sense of a gym is not realised as the gym is integrated within the architecture. The building creating its own landscape of the machine, extruding and intruding the natural habitat, pathways allow you to reach the running modules where a journey within itself begins.
Harnessing the energy of the river As they walk across the river, interacting with the barge boats. They become more than a machine for at their heart is a person.
Harvesting energy from currents through hydroelectric arm mechanisms.
Identity of the Machine This section reveals the structure, construction and environment of the organism that is the spa
Machine core, the heart of the spa, a shrine to that of the components that allow us to find our calm.
1:300 Section A cut through the changing rooms and central pool, this shows the general path one must take to reach their center of calm
The spa is a place of many identities, an environment of altering realities it hides it purpose, asking the person to search for it yet it reveals its processes to the world, it does not ask the person to understand the process but respect and acknowledge that they are part of a system where the building depends just as much on the person as the person depends on the building. Therefore a harmony is created through this knowledge of dependance where, the work of the person is reflected outwards and the work of the machine reflected inwards. This phenomenon of the building and the person becoming part of the singular system is the allowance for the space of the relaxed and the pathway to the surreality of the dream.