Containers and flows : investigating systems of spatial construction in an aquarium

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the design of an aquarium on the waterfront of Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong . The aquarium serves as a public 'event' which aims to educate and inform the visitor about regional environmental conditions and their effects on global ecological systems. The design incorporates the notion of 'information flows: addressing the relationship between the movement of the visitor through the architectural space and the movement of information sustained by the architecture. Acrylic technologies which function as the threshold between water and air, provide the opportunity to investigate the way in which information is layered and disseminated in this specific program. The aquarium aims at reconciliation between the harbor front development and the water's edge, becoming the physical filter between the aquatic ecosystem and the civic community. If we consider the aquarium building type as a 'living machine' (i.e., one that needs to sustain life), it can then be described as having a symbiotic relationship with the organisms it sustains . The aquarium can then be considered as a 'container' or sampling of the greater global aquatic ecosystem, encapsulated by a flowing membrane of circulation reciprocating with Hong Kong's urban fabric. The thesis proposes that architectural space can be redefined at the interface between nature, technology and the body.