a tower for pleasure

All circulation meets at one level below the last floor. To ensure everyone is able to enjoy the same experience to get to the very top, whether one takes the stairs or elevator, they must transfer onto an inclined elevator that travels one storey to reach the viewing deck.

The viewing deck features a large angled window facing the mountains. It is open to the sky, allowing water to fall down the glass, gathering in a large channel in the ground.

The angle of the window allows not only for a view outward, but also a view down, to be able to see the tower, city, and life on the street below.

The representation of a tower typically begins with an exterior glamour shot that is often much more dynamic than the actual experience within. The interior space, though there is so much of it in a tower, is usually homogenous and generic.

To subvert this, the tower was presented from the inside first, to showcase the potential of the interior experience before revealing the exterior.

This report is a culmination of the work, packaged, footnoted, as complete as it will ever be. And before this totally wraps up, for my own sake more than anything else, I would like to briefly recount the true messiness of this process.

In the beginning, I had no interest in rain, or towers, or Vancouver at all. I wanted to explore the theory of aesthetics and the value of beauty in architecture. The fascination with towers came months later, almost randomly. I chose to set the project in Vancouver because I happen to currently be in Vancouver. I picked the particular site because the new developments intrigued me in the moment, seemed just provocative enough, and it also happened to be close to my favorite ramen restaurant. At the time, it was difficult to explain the reasoning behind these decisions, other than that I felt strongly that there was something linking everything together, even if I couldn’t quite explain it in a coherent way.

I think if I learned anything in my last semester, it is that architecture is rarely totally coherent, but that is also what makes it such a compelling profession. It is not supposed to be easy to make a single sentence statement that sums it all up. Even though I tried to, I couldn’t, and I still can’t. And ultimately, I like that I can’t quite wrap my head around all of it at once.

Finally, I would like to address the question of aesthetics. Although I was not explicit about it, rain was always my proxy for beauty. It was the part of the project that I couldn’t perfectly model or draw, but I wanted to believe could turn a banal space into maybe a beautiful one. Using the steel curtains to coax rain into the architecture was a way to imply that beauty is not something I can or want to force into a project, but something that I could invite, or try to make room for. For me, beauty is something fleeting, always changing. It is something I am uncertain about, yet it is what makes me look forward to an uncertain future.

So, in case I forget how I truly got to this tower, I hope this serves as a good reminder that though everything somewhat made sense in the end, it was not an easy or straightforward process, it took many long talks with many friends, it was 90% based on a gut feeling, and though it will never be enough, it is a project with a potential I will always dream about.

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