'The Saltwater Hammam' is a bath house that uses filtered greywater to raise awareness of water recycling, as water is a dwindling natural resource in Amman. The building focuses on a journey of intensification. As visitors descend the spiral staircase, the concentration of space, light, vegetation, steam and salt becomes increasingly dense.
Visitors can also observe and experience the smooth transition between exterior and interior whilst bathing in the various pools across different floors. Each pool is unique in salinity, light, temperature and spatial experience. As visitors reach the end of this intensification journey at the Dead Sea pool, they are surrounded with the pure and intense water vapour released from the sauna. Supersaturated saltwater with a salinity of 40% allows visitors to float, relax and observe naturally occurring salt formations.
When submerged in supersaturated saltwater, 3D printed geometries with gaps allow the salt formations to freely grow and merge together.
View that highlights the journey through the building. As visitors descend down the spiral staircase, salinity, water purity, lighting conditions and sense of enclosure intensifies.
Detail of the spiral staircase which is enclosed by an intensifying salt façade.