Spring 2019
This project was an opportunity to push myself in the formal language of the design to explore the concept of thermal contrast. Bath houses present a unique opportunity to contrast thermal sensations with a hot, warm, and cold pool. In the warm pool space, I focused on the pool as a neutral environment, allowing it to contrast the natural air and to truly connect the user into the environment through all the senses. It is also situated on level with the lake to create a tension of being adjacent to nature. The hot pool was within the ground with high ceilings and northern light with a thick concrete shell to allow the ground and the air to stay cool and shaded with a very soft light. The cold pool follows the hot pool, elevated above the ground with direct southern light and a thin concrete shell, allowing the heat to seep through and to warm the air. The dry sauna and the herbal room follow the cold pool, taking the user into the ground with a thin sliver of light coming through against the earth walls to emphasize the texture and the seating. The tunnel connects the user back to the changing rooms, encasing the users into the earth and guiding them through with a skylight.
The material palate consists of concrete, wood flooring, and the granite earth. Concrete is used in a plastic way, artificially growing out of the landscape to create a new envelope. The earth was modified to emphasize the use of the earth as a building material equal in use to the concrete. These materials have a very different thermal inertia, allowing the material to also play a role in the thermal contrast between the spaces.