Planet - thermal battery as simple energy saver

Can a thermal mass be big enough to maintain a stable ambient temperature, and provide adequate ventilation, in a northern climate? Moreover, can it do so for an entire institutional building? Buoyancy driven ventilation systems - and their consequential temperature-maintenance systems, can save energy, and work well in seasonally similar climates, as these can predictably provide livable interior conditions year-round. Places that use a disproportionately large amount of the earth’s available energy, however, are not in such climate zones, for example Boston. As such, a simple, monolithic “thermal battery” can be radiantly heated and cooled if water piped within it, and air channeled through its pores to deliver ventilation and temperature difference to desired spaces. 

Progress - mechanical, structural and spatial systems are analogous

Can the flow of air be guided through a building with only architectural elements, and without ducts? Taking cues from the thermal battery, which has a mechanical function (heating/cooling of air), a structural function (supporting the wooden volumes above) as well as a spatial one (hosting sensorially subdued exercise areas in its caverns), the composition of the terra- cotta clad top volume acts as a channel for air; first, its thick exterior walls are hollow, directing the freshly conditioned air from below up into the rooms, and allowing light to filter down; second, all the rooms are delimited by bent plywood planes, which, with their curved edges, scoop air from the hollow walls into the interior; the spaces between the terracotta volumes are both stairwells and exhaust chimneys.

Place - subtle contextual reciprocation

Situated on the threshold between a historically residential low-rise neighborhood, and a mid-rise commercial one, the wellness center takes material cues from the surroundings to both complement and enhance them. The massive stone volumes of the latter inform the massive concrete base of the wellness center, while the nearly-uniform brick cladding of the former inform the top, terracotta volume. Further, the terracotta volumes enhance the intimate nature of the program within, spatially suggesting non-institutional subdivision and privacy inside. Thus the stance is not imitation, but clever reciprocation.