A cooling center is a place for people to escape the summer heat. The municipality opens libraries, nursing homes, and other public places to the public when needed. However, their thermal specifications are not oriented toward energy efficiency. This is one of the cooling center’s challenges, specifically, the disconnect between function and design.
New York has a very interesting history of swimming pools, which have served many purposes as medical, recreational, and so on. They have also been used as a tool to witness racial divisions. I used water as an insulating material for the building and integrated the whole circulation of the pool into the use of the building throughout the year. This rationalizes the transformation of the building’s function throughout the year.
