NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY
Stacey Mountfort
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf, So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay. — Robert Frost
Preface: The poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost speaks of Gold metaphorically as anything in life that is ‘perfect’ and happy, like the Garden of Eden, a spring day, or a beautiful sunrise. It could be seen as a feeling of contentedness, or a notion of things new and wonderful. The title is used in the final line of the poem and reminds us of the only other mention of gold in this poem, which is in the first line. The line neatly wraps up all the metaphors of early spring leaves and flowers, the Garden of Eden, and dawn which are all gold, yet none of them can stay for very long in this world. Flowers “subside” to become green leaves, people become corrupt, and the delicate dawn light becomes bright boring light of the day. These ideas evoke an architectural problem of time and the erosion or change of the build world within a vulnerable and temporal environment. However the built environment can celebrate this notion of time and erosion through a narrative architecture that encapsulates an essence of time, movement, change, fracture, and journey. By highlighting the presence of our temporal environment through an architectural design, the sublime becomes even more beautiful in contrast to this. There is a knowing that this ‘Gold’ will come again. The poem also suggests this in saying “dawn goes down to day”, where the reader understands that dawn is at the beginning of the day —even though Frost alludes to sunset— and it will indeed come to fruition again.
Figure.1 Title Page
Figure.2 Contour Map of Site with Focal Lines
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ABSTRACT// Problem Statement:
Aims:
We live in a world that searches for a condition of ‘perfect’ — a perfect image, a perfect landscape, a perfect place, a perfect life. We search for that which is beautiful, satisfying, and complete; these notions of divinity cannot exist in a disintegrating and ever-shifting world. There remains a temporality of our existence, and the existence of things.
The principal aim of the investigation is to create an architectural intervention that presents both a threshold and an experiential journey for explorers – one that embraces the quarry site and hiking track above. This is a place that suggests it was once a rectilinear form, but the dynamics of time and intrusions in the land have shifted and fragmented its form. Primarily the journey should indicate a metaphor of a tension between the horizontal and the vertical — the temporal and the eternal.
The built environment can celebrate this notion of time and erosion through a narrative architecture that encapsulates an essence of time, movement, change, fracture, and journey. The narrative can also evoke a glimpse of divinity beyond this temporal world in a reflection of beauty, or the sublime within its enduring realities. The Owhiro Bay Quarry site is appropriate to address this issue because the land itself is a dramatic scar upon a rugged and aging landscape. It provides opportunity to integrate a form or series of interventions that suggests a disturbance in the purity of the scape that has left a fragmentation in the strata of the cliff. The coastal site also allows the combination of water and the horizon line to contrast against the rugged vertical terrain. This horizon plane is reflected in the strata of the rock and levels of the quarry cut away from the rock face. This combination of juxtaposition and reflection of the ‘pure’ horizon against the shifting planes helps to address the notions of temporality and eternity discussed above.
Objectives: The main objective is to develop a form that suggests a sense of horizontality through delicately ascending levels that interweave through the fragments of dominant and grounded verticals; this suggesting a conversation of the ephemeral with the perpetual. The floating horizontals will be integrated with the circulation as the narrative journey up the building. These planes also form the catchments for thermal pools which create the horizon lines within the intervention. They evoke the idea of the eternal or sublime as the inhabitants’ own pool horizon merges with the view of the ocean’s horizon. It looks beyond to the South Island, proposing a divine land in the distance.
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Figure 3. Entrance into Site from the East
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Figure 4. Front Elevation Perspective (From the shoreline)
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Ground Floor
First Floor
Second Floor
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Figure 5. Final Design Plans
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Third Floor
Fourth Floor (Top) (Infinity pool)
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Figure 6. 3/4 West High Angle Perspective: Viewing terrace baths
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KEY// 1
Entry Ramp
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Outdoor Eastern Pools
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Atrium Foyer
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Outdoor Stairs to Pool levels Above
3 Main Stair/Internal Fire Stair and Glass 13 Steaming Room/ Mezzanine Resting Elevator Space 4
Locker Room and Storage
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Disabled Unisex Toilet / Staff Toilet
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Male Toilets
15 Female Changing Room/Lockers/ Showers
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Female Toilets
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External Fire Stair
8 Sauna
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Office/Staff Room/Store
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Terrace Pools
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Staff Lunch room, Kitchen
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Underbridge Pond
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Massage Cubicals
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Wet Services Wall (Entire height)
Figure 7. Programmatic Floor Plans
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Figure 9. Longitudinal Section
Figure 10. Transverse Section
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Figure 11. Entrance Perspective
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Figure 12. Terrace Pools Looking East
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Figure 13. Fourth Floor Lane Pools Perspective (looking west)
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Figure 14. Ground Floor Atrium Reception 26
Figure 15. Top Infity Pool Perspective
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Figure 16. Site Plan 28
CONCLUSION//
The temporality of our existence, and the existence of things has been an important issue to resolve through this design investigation because in order to move past creating mundane architecture in order to ‘safe-guard’ itself within the changing conditions of its surrounding contexts, there must be an acceptance of this condition. Instead, the built environment can celebrate this notion of time and erosion through a narrative architecture that encapsulates an essence of time, movement, change, fracture, and journey.
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It could be concluded that this investigation successfully impliments these qualities through the interweaving levels and terraces which act as horizon lines similar to the scarred quarry and the surrounding ocean plane. The careful articulation of these horizontals with the sharded core —or the designed landscape elements with Architectural elements— through their pure materiality and responding push, pulls, interesections, allignments, repitition and reflections combine to create a cohesive, evocative and experiential journey that enlivens the exisiting landscape. However, this design investigation is limited in its focus on the past and its implications to the present context of the site, rather than considering how the building and land may change or adapt for the future. Furthermore, the rarity of the site is a constraint on the application of these findings on other, more urban or less dramatic sites. However, the courageousness of the design within the dramtic quarry setting encourages the design of buildings in seemingly mundane settings to extract as much context and excitement from the site. This would therefore create dynamic, experiential and/or narrative designs which respond to the surrounding setting’s present conditions. Then as conditions change over time, the design can stand as an articulation of what had been before it, and evoke new responses in future designs of the neighbouring sites. Therefore, this study in future may advance, if extended beyond the original scope, to make iterative study of a cluster of adjacent buildings and their sites and design in a communicative way —so to fastforeward time and represent a changing environment and how within the context of each period the sublime, delight and beauty in design can be celebrated.
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