This project embraces the industrial context of the site and the mechanical complexity of the program: a mixed use Incinerator and Natatorium in Soho, NYC. The building is a programmatic and experiential gradient, focusing on one end, the individual, and the other, the machine. The project investigates the potentials of tensile structures in both material cladding and structural enclosure.
Programmatic volumes inform the curvature of a minimal surface gridshell enclosing the natatorium and a steel mesh veil which hugs and highlights the mechanical components of the incinerator. The two skins offer a visual connection for the two programs. This project investigates material that has agency: enhancing, revealing, reversing itself from day to night. It explores what an architectural skin can reveal, frame, capture and absorb.