Room for weather

Abstract

This thesis addresses a contemporary paradox: as buildings become ever more robust and environmentally controlled, everyday contact with weather, its shifts of rain, wind and light, recedes from embodied experience. Taking Gothenburg’s Skeppsbron as a testbed, the work explores how graded thresholds between inside and outside can orchestrate sensory experience , developed through the architectural proposal of a public bathhouse on the river. The research question investigates how architecture can choreograph weather as a co designer through spatial sequences, materials and tectonic detail. Methodologically, the project is research-through-design: comparative readings of key references, site analysis, iterative sketching, and prototypes at multiple scales. The stance is phenomenological and tectonic where atmosphere is treated as an operative design parameter. The outcome is a buildable proposal, including detailed drawings for a public bathhouse at Skeppsbron. From a sustainability perspective, the project advocates for gentler environmental control, extended seasonal use, and socially legible spaces that foster civic life in all weather conditions. This approach embodies an ethical stance of living with, rather than against, the local climate