Memory of Vapor - Cooling Tower Renovated Into Bathhouse

The cooling tower in Tangshan is not just an industrial icon but a repository of collective memories. Our project seeks to repurpose this tower, extending its life spatially and in communal recollections. Our design wishes to showcase sustainable approaches as a model to organically revitalize industrial remnants.



As a pivotal node in the landscape axis, the tower is transformed by inserting an empty box, making it accessible to the public. This void becomes the city's living room, integrating the tower's internal scenery into the urban landscape. The tower's verticality demands strategic use of space. Internally, an empty box preserves the hollow volume and extends public access. Externally, a new translucent and operable skin along with the vertical circulation enhance the cooling tower’s dynamic and lively urban image.



To evoke a 'wet memory,' we propose transforming the tower into a bathhouse. The intimate community relationships from the last century add a social attribute to bathing. The bathhouse, tied to the industrial context on an urban scale, responds to the site's memory and actively engages in ecological microclimate cycles by improving water recycling systems, sunlight filtering mechanism and air circulation.



This reflective nostalgia infuses remaining city images from the industrial age with renewed vitality, weaving the memory of a generation back into the city narrative. It continues the past into future decades against a contemporary backdrop.