Arch: Neighborhood Pool
This project proposes a 50-meter swimming facility on the site of Ithaca's existing skatepark. Conceived as both a competition venue and a community recreation center, the building combines an Olympic-length pool with community swimming facilities and a gymnasium. It uses novel 3D concrete printing for large shear walls and employs a massive 220’ span catenary roof structure.
The proposal explores the relationship between human activity, memory, and architectural form. By modeling people as forces acting upon the site, the project investigates how a program derived from my own memory of swimming pools might adapt, transform, and respond to the collective needs of its users. The resulting architecture attempts to reconcile personal experience with the demands of a public, high-performance building.
Studio Professor: Marta Wisniewska
The building employs novel 3D concrete-printing techniques to construct its primary shear walls, paired with a substantial 220-foot-span catenary roof structure. Rather than treating structure and form as separate systems, the project seeks to integrate them into a singular architectural gesture. Structure generates form, while form simultaneously organizes and expresses the structural system.
This approach allows a single formal move to establish the building's overall massing while responding to the interrelated demands of structural performance, environmental conditions, programmatic organization, and human occupation. The resulting proposal is an exploration of how architecture can emerge from the intersection of engineering, memory, and the forces of everyday life.