Istanbul as a chaotic organic system has a delicate urban fabric. Any intervention can be a catalyst for change beyond what can be predicted.

Tophane-i-Amire has a delicate relationship with the Bosphoros waterway that has been severely affected by recent insensitive development in the area. The rich qualities of the site and the earth have been lost, and the water has been forced away from the residents.

The bathhouse aims to re establish the importance of water in Istanbulu and Turkish Culture.

Based on data collected from site studies, we can hypothesise several qualities of the site that can inform the programme, such as the current usage patterns, topography, relationship to urbanity and terrain, social balances and congestion.

The bathhouse is an underground intervention, with several pools of varying temperature, connected by a primary 'rain space'. This rain space is the central point of reference in the buiding's circulation - a space that performs that basic act of cleansing as a warm mist permeates the walls and cleanses the users as they move from pool to pool.

The bath is governed by the qualities of light that determine the speed of the spaces. The pools, governed by huge light wells that filter light down from the surface above, become slow spaces as the direction of light remains constant through the course of the day. The central rain space is governed by a perforated facade that allows light to travel through the space over the course of the day, thus it is a fast space. The speed of the spaces lend to the activities that occur there.