Sander Lambrix

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Aqualibrium emerges as the synergy between a place of tranquillity and the availability of clean water.

In rapidly growing cities, as Dar es Salaam, informal, open spaces are becoming increasingly scarce in the quest to answer its economic and demographic pressure. Places of tranquillity are even more precious and rare.

This site in Dar es Salaam, situated in between informal settlements and the more up-class residential area, waiting to be developed, is the perfect location for a place of urban refuge, a place to escape the busy city and daily mundane world. With this intervention, both worlds, formal and informal, are acknowledged and united in the creation of an architectural oasis that preserves tranquillity in the city.

The fact that the site presently serves as a flood basin, is the starting point of my design.

The architectural intervention goes deeper into the soil and uses the exposed void as a place where any person can temporarily escape from the hectic city. The function of buffering the floodwater is continued as water is captured, cleaned and provided as a resource for the community. Tranquillity and the availability of clean water create the synergy that supports this place of emotion. Void gradually descends and transitions into another world, a labyrinth where one can contemplate while searching for a spiritual endpoint in between the mass, which contains and cleans the water. Several centres allow for a transition of different atmospheres while the expression of materiality communicates the duality of the project.

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