This study into a vertically arranged multi-climate park explores the possibilities of having a park in a building. Traditional parks absorb an awful lot of ground-level space, which is why, certainly in metropolitan areas, they can only be laid at places that are freed more or less accidentally. A park in a building need occupy only a bare minimum of exterior space. There is no question then of annexing large tracts of land. This way, the whole issue of embedding parks in existing urban areas is alleviated considerably.

Where a building is a configuration of spaces, a park is a succession of landscapes. And if the issue in a normal building is keeping an indoor climate under control, a park is the place to enjoy the vagaries of an outdoor climate. A park in an enclosed space, on the other hand, offers the opportunity of monitoring that climate. In climatological terms the present park-building is entirely premised on solar and wind energy. The atmospheres in the building tantalize the senses and heighten one's experience of the park. Our experience of this particular park is basically a question of the sensory contrast between indoor and outdoor climate, with the natural elements expounding an aesthetic though interchangeable theme. The view is not one of trees and plants but of dripping pipes, waving ropes, finely sprayed mists. A walk through the building leads across a waterfall, through a corridor of drips, and ending at a mist-sieve. Sunbathing in the absorbers, you wait for your child who is tobogganing down the ice-spiral. While the tropical hall charged with darknesses is the apotheosis of the tubular bend, it's winter in the condensor labyrinth.

The park-building fits within the urban landscape of the twenty-first century. In arid Kuwait, for instance, the park-building can contain a Rain-park, in Milan or Mexico City an Oxygen-park, and in the energy fields of Saudi Arabia an air-conditioned Ice-park.

Place of education: Rotterdam
Specialization: architectuur
Tutors: Michiel Riedijk, Umberto Barbieri, Harm Tilman & Winy Maas