An aquarium for Seattle, Washington

Abstract

At present the city of Seattle, Washington has in its waterfront plan a proposal for what they call an aqua-theatre. As fulfillment of my thesis and partial fulfillment for the degree in Architecture from Montana State University, I would like to use them as my client in designing for them this aqua-theatre (aquarium). This aquarium would display or exhibit a wide variety of aquatic life that would live in harmony with each other for others to visit and enjoy, I have also considered combining with this aquarium, research facilities for studying marine life, but i feel I should limit ray proposal and design to displaying and maintaining marine life, because of the overall complex function it will take, that of tank systems, etc. Observing inhabitants from the marine world can become quite compelling. I would like it to be an educational as well as an entertaining experience. It is a known fact that in future years we will be calling more and more on marine life to answer many of our problems. Already the biochemist has been using marine organisms in hope of extracting some useful substance beneficial to man. The behaviorist has been observing marine organisms trying to determine the motivation behind defined behavior patterns. For these reasons and many more I find myself wanting to exploit marine life and since I am putting myself in the position of designing an aquarium, through this I would to extend my findings to others by letting them relate to aquatic life and experience it through the concept I devise. I would expect to relate the aquarium to the urban plan of Seattle and to the waterfront redevelopment area. I would expect the aquarium to be a focal point of the waterfront plan.