The Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. houses some of the most important national treasures of the United States. It is now under severe threat of the rising sea level caused by climate change. In the recent years, the walkways along the water is often flooded. By 2120, the sea level could rise by 3.5m according to estimation, which would submerge the whole Tidal Basin. The project takes the 3.5m water level rise as the premise and proposes a new building in the basin. Apart from collecting and protecting the endangered national treasures, the building spotlights two key issues of the country for the following one hundred years: the inclusiveness of the society and the harmony between humankind and nature.
A third of the building is dedicated to a bathhouse. The culture of bathhouse has been found in multiple cultures, both Eastern and Western. While they might differ from each other in the way people approach the water, they share the same love towards the hygienic, therapeutic and social experience. The bathhouse of the Tidal Basin invites people of different races, ages and gender identities to relax and interact in the same pool of water, just as they live and thrive under the same sky.
The building also holds an exhibition and education center for rising sea level. As a response to climate change, the building lets the rising water submerge the structure instead of denying or regulating it. A floating bridge connects the project to other monuments that are large enough to survive the changing water level. Two new detention ponds mitigates the flooding of the inner land. Floating wetlands with native plants are carefully placed according to seasonal changes, gently cleansing the water in the basin.
