WATER WORKS

Sunset Park, New York // Columbia University, GSAPP // Year 2, Semester 2 // 2017 // Instructor: Tei Carpenter

BASE currently has issues with its current facility. The main issues seem community focused, at a facility scale, indicating issues with interactive and communal learning, environmental comfort and accessibility. As these issues seem prevalent at numerous scales through the industrial fabric surrounding the site, the new campus attempts to address these considerations at the local, and at the neighbourhood scale, whilst maintaining BASE’s ecological focus.

Through a study of the water treatment process, it was found that wastewater usually enters the treatment plants at around 80F, and then cools as it goes through the treatment process before being expelled back into the river. This thermal potential was seen as an opportunity to allow the water to be integrated into the campus’ systems as well as the educational model. This resulted in a thermal reorganization of the campus programs. These could be arranged so that the systems overlap with the discreet moments of treatment and temperature of the water, from which the heat could be thermally harnessed and distributed to the campus. The resulting building sectionally becomes an intensification of nature. Whilst the plan concept looks at fluidity of motion, the section focuses on the idea of friction through an interplay of two horizontal planes. These two planes expand and contract, to maintain thermal conditions for the enclosed spaces, allowing the façade to function purely as a buffer for light. 

These “fat” natures would be maintained by the students and interwoven within the educational model. The building as a result, almost acts as a machine which needs to be maintained by the students, allowing them to be responsible for the spaces they use. Whilst the enclosed spaces are conditioned for optimum temperatures for the activities within, the exterior spaces respond through materiality. Each temperature “group” would have it’s own experiential quality, anchored through the existing buildings. These buildings would be repurposed to house the industrial-scale water treatment processes, which the scientific labs are attached through. The wastewater, whilst is interwoven within the educational model, also thermally supports the campus, and allows the spaces to function, which manifests itself through multiple senses by the use of thermochromatic materials enclosing the spaces.  

The roofs would be occupiable by the students, as an extension of the spaces below, whilst circulation jogs from exposed to semi-exposed, allowing moments of serendipitous interaction and providing gathering spaces for students to interact and heighten the sense of community within the campus. 

The project involved complex Rhino 3D modeling. All drawings and diagrams were post-processed in Illustrator and Photoshop. The physical models were created using a variety of techniques, from the digital to the analogue.