Roma Thermaes
The proposal's foremost exploration comes after an essential understanding of Ancient Rome's lifestyle, where thermal baths performed a preponderant role in the recreational activity of roman people
The proposal's foremost exploration comes after an essential understanding of Ancient Rome's lifestyle, where thermal baths performed a preponderant role in the recreational activity of roman people. Imagine for a while the thick masonry walls, the temperatures, the fragrances, the harmony of the forms, legionaries' sandals wandering across the corridors, red tunics. Contemporary Rome has striven tirelessly to remain unaltered, becoming a city-museum which doesn't consent novelties among its buildings. To raise a 100m tall Vertical Spa next to the Coliseum already implies a kindness dilemma, the proposal suggests avoiding confrontations by resolving the facade with immense red curtains, allowing the wind to change its form and conciliate the differences with the new neighbors. With practically a perfect symmetry, the building is unraveled with a quadrangular plan that absorbs the variances of program in each level. Nowadays notion of interior space cedes to the seductive ancient idea of eliminating doors and windows, so the thermal bath visitors may rejoice in the temperature changes without modern artifices. Therefore, it seems the use of curtains is a great idea; the single possibility of placing them as preferred worth all the effort. In summer to the west, concealing from the sun; in winter all closed, sheltering from the cold. An unlimited catalog of possibilities. According to a heterogeneous vertical allocation, spaces have been arranged along the tower; the differentiation of intimate, private and public rooms is resolved within vertical levels. It is understandable that hot waters must be in the core of the building as a beating blue heart, where darkness and steam lead the dazzling scene of a roman thermae of the XXI century.
