ATLANTA WELLNESS RETREAT SPRING 2021 -

The ruin of the New Manchester Manufacturing Company, a textile mill burned during the Civil War, is located at Sweetwater Creek State Park, Georgia. Since then, the foliage has taken over the abandoned site, as it has become a significant landmark of the hiking trails along the Chattahoochee River.

In this site, a welnesss retreat is proposed, including baths, sauna and accomodation. Light structure emphasizing the trees are now taking over the site, while the heaviness of the brick ruins express the history that essentially sits on the site. The tensil force of verticality represents the abstraction of the gravity, which is defined throughout the project.

Academic Project

Georgia Institute of Technology

2nd Year Studio

Instructor: Julie Kim

Individual

Abstraction of Gravity

Diving into the pool, you compete the sinking vector and the buoyancy. Then, you slowly arise, floating on the pool, and looking up to the sky. While the water lift you up to the very surface, the glazed structure creates a perspectival path to the sky, allowing for a significant poetic experience.

The trees; as it pushes the ground with its roots but also reaches up to the sky, creates a tensil force of verticality that represents the abstraction of gravity. The project allows visitors to realize and feel their own bodyweight in contrast to the architectural spaces, creating a poetic-like atmosphere as one spend their weekends at Sweetwater Creek, just outside of Atlanta.