Project Description

This project is a design exercise in balance and land planning. The proposal for a new Montrose Harbor Yacht Club required the use of barges, as well as a reorganization of the existing dock orientation. There is a great variety of users on the site; students and teachers in the sailing program, the parents of those students and regatta spectators, and those who dock their boats in the harbor. As a way to connect the many uses and users of this site and program, a pedestrian walkway and observation platform is used to connect the existing parking lot (initial interaction with the site), the Yacht Club situated on barges (separated by a connecting walkway attached to the second floor according to programmatic needs), and the regatta, or boat races (with a cantilevered observation deck, also overlooking the adjacent Bird Sanctuary).

The structure of the Yacht Club is composed of curved laminated fiberglass panels, the same material with which sail boats are constructed. Each floor is suspended and pulled back through a series of cables which distribute the load of the floor, as well as the roof, back into the barge. Each barge is weighed down under-water to establish a delicate balance.