Dialogue With The Sea

Project idea

The issue of global sea pollution has been critically addressed within the local context. The waterfront of Georgetown, Penang despite being part of the UNESCO’s world heritage site is being neglected whilst the conservation efforts is more focused to the inner city. As a result, there is a clear dichotomy between the inner city of Georgetown and its waterfront. The aquarium is designed as a dialogue between the land and the sea with the intentions to create awareness of the negative effects on nature caused by humans. Dialogue with The Sea serves as a platform for social awareness towards the importance of conserving the aquatic environments as well as to alert the community of the critical issues on the outer area of Georgetown. It also creates the opportunity for the community to engage in the roles to protect the sea from the pollutions.

Dialogue with The Sea [DWS] The project calls for a public building as an ‘Archipuncture’ to be designed as an urban intervention cell in Georgetown World Heritage Site. From the local settings, the site of the project has the advantage of sitting at the waterfront of Georgetown Heritage Zone. This gives the opportunity for the community from both the inner city core and towards the sea front to communicate at the point of the project location. The main emphasis of the design is not much of creating the building in the perfect form, but it is an attempt to generate the soul of the place.

Project description

The Waterfront Site, by its local settings, is quite obvious that the proposed public building sits in between the inner city of Georgetown Heritage and the sea. The location itself has brought significant advantages to the project to set up an aquarium that creates the dialogue between the sea and the inner city. This dialogue is formed through visual and physical movement transitions that pass through the aquarium itself. The conversations has created a profound dialogue between the sea and the land for the community to comprehend the importance to preserve the environment.

A Building for Conversation

Mies Van der Rohe quoted, If you view nature through the glass walls of the Farnsworth House, it gains a more profound significance than if viewed from outside. That way more is said about nature - it becomes a part of a larger whole.

The aquarium focuses on the idea of translating the visual transition from the land to the sea and vice versa. Hence, the term ‘Vice Versa’ architecture has profoundly created the conversation between the inner city and the sea through its physical and visual accessibilities. Also, the aquarium itself fosters the community bonds to the sea, that they are sprawled from the inner city towards the sea to comprehend the critical situations that provokes the nature. The spaces have been planned in such a way that the public’s attention will be drawn from the inner city to open spaces on the north and south side which are then led to the main function spaces such as exhibition gallery. With the arrangements of the building’s program, the physical movement transitions has been parallel-directed in relation to the visual transitions.

The Features

The orientation of the project site is at the disadvantages due to its elongated sides facing east-west. Thus, the uplifted aquarium facing east-west is vulnerable to heat gain and the aquatic habitants are not capable to withstand high temperatures. Hence, the introduction of big overhang roofs with folding profiles representing the water element in rigid form to avoid the aquarium from direct contact with the sunlight. The horizontal aluminum shading devices and creeper plants significantly reduces the sunlight penetration onto the aquarium. In addition, the generation of the cool sea water into chiller pipes sealed in the waterproof concrete floor slab further lowers the temperature of the aquarium. With the attached solar panels on the top surfaces, the electricity generated it is sufficient to cater for lightings on streetscape and fish farming pond.

The Programs

Apart from the aquarium, sea water filtration platform is another prominent area that provides the visual experience for water filtration system. Sea water flows into an inlet, flooding the whole filtration platform creating the opportunities for the public to be in contact with sea water. The filtered sea water will be used to irrigate the native sea plants and sea water transition tank. The exhibition galleries, the café and the retails are designed to promote the functions internally, whereas the linear park and open plaza with the performance stages are tackled externally for the community usage. In addition, the research lab, meeting rooms, the auditorium hall and the office are designed for community functions, research and development. Also to note that the major occupants for this public building are the aquatic habitants, with support spaces for transition tank and hatchery tank designed to facilitate the occupants.

Technical information

Site Location : Georgetown Heritage Zone, Penang, Malaysia
Site Area (hectare / sqm2) : 12,224.20 m2
Gross Floor Area (sqm2) : 4,766.70 m2
Building Height (storeys / metres) : 2 Storeys / 23 metres

The constraints on the project are the existing urban fabric and the setting of the project being part of UNESCO heritage site. It can be observed that the existing streetscapes are mainly shop houses not higher than 2 storeys especially in the adjacent areas to the site. Hence, the existing urban fabric cannot be obstructed by the proposed public building, in order to preserve the visual from and to the sea. By uplifting the aquarium on top of the buildings, it manages to preserve the visual translations from the sea as well as from the inner core city.

On the other hand, the orientation of the project site is at the disadvantages due to its elongated sides facing east-west. Thus, the uplifted aquarium facing east-west is vulnerable to heat gain and aquatic habitants are not capable to withstand high temperature. Hence, the introduction of big overhang roofs with folding profiles representing the water element in rigid form to avoid the aquarium from direct contact with the sunlight. The horizontal aluminium shading devices and creeper plants significantly reduces the sunlight penetration onto the aquarium. In addition, the generation of the cool sea water into chiller pipes sealed in the waterproof concrete floor further lowers the temperature of the aquarium. With the attached solar panels on the top surfaces, the generated electricty is sufficient to cater for lighting on streetscape and in fish farming pond.

Co-authors

N/A