project: BAL_BALI Research Center
client: Private
type: public
location: Bali, Indonesia
surface: 2638 m2
date: 10.06.2010
status: competition entry
project team: AVP_arhitekti
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 of island 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 functions requirements of the MRC (marine research centre), and on the other hand, solid volumes were manifested in the above-sea level as tops of volcanoes, connected on the under-sea level. The very same personification of everlasting relationship of land and sea, earth and water. The building also responds naturally to its environment , for example: When the ocean is at its “high-tide phase”, the building submerges into the sea, being covered by water just letting see its four pyramidal volumes or “volcanoes”, but when at “low-tide phase”, the MRC emerges again from within the sea to welcome the air, sun and guests, thus becoming a building that interacts with this natural process.
The program consisted basically in grouping all the functions within the MRC – semipublic, public, and private – and sort them horizontally throughout the building. The result is a basic division of 3 equal areas which at the same time define the structural grid. Sometimes the various programs interconnect (as the volumes) but parts in whole still preserve its given predominant function.
