The main challenge that we’ve put upon ourselves was to combine tradition and geographic characteristics of this island with the requested architectural assignment – a Marine research center for tsunamis.
How to design a building within an impressive landscape (sea, volcanoes, temples, sunset…) without affecting such delicate balance?
The main idea came from the intention of making the above-sea level as less dominant on the Kuta beach horizon, famous for it’s surreal sunset, but symbolic enough to incorporate the very essence the island of Bali and to become a new landmark.
Our concept needed further development, so by analyzing several proposals, we came to a strong commitment to merge the sea and inland; an interaction of both elements, a symbiosis of these opposite essentials. Thus, the design is basically an interaction of solid and liquid, land and sea. By cutting voids on the original building mass, we created several spaces which are filled naturally with water to accomplish the different function requirements of the MRC (marine research center), and on the other hand, solid volumes were manifested in the above-sea level as tops of volcanoes, connected on the under-sea level.
