The Overflowing Lavender is a public Laundromat designed to embrace the notion of collecting water. Key elements of the design of this project consider the various beneficial uses of collecting water, including collecting water to help run the washing machinery and café services, to even using the reflective characteristics of water as a way of visually engaging with the natural landscape.
The Overflowing Lavanderia was designed while in Mexico for the citizens of a small remote town near the Mountain of Tequila in Jalisco, Mexico. This town of less than 50 residents relies heavily on their limited common areas which includes a large Bull Fighting Ring in the center of the town that is used as a public gathering place of great significance. The public network of canals, utilized to collect and transport rain water, is also a cherished asset in the town. By being able to visit with the locals myself and design in their environment, I was able to better understand the needs they had as a community.
The major defining characteristic of The Overflowing Lavenderia is the large exaggerated overhead canopy. To employ a unique large scale steel roof, the gesture of its use as a vessel has to be clearly articulated. The shape of the roof is angled upward to capture the water. Its directionality is clearly defined, moving down from a sharp edge to large gathering pool. The northern brick façade works as a secondary vessel penetrating into the roof’s gathering pool and allowing water to move between the tertiary space of the brick walls and down to circulate water to various secondary systems of water collection, eventually pooling into the lower reflecting pools.