Pleasure Island by Amin Taha Architects

Birnbeck Island is one of the major projects from Amin Taha, a London based architect. The purpose of this project was giving a new identity to the island using the following three principals:

1. Pleasure Island: Island’s bridge was part of the age old leisure destinations with a dull seaside resort. So there has been a strong desire for the spa and coastal therapy from which these resorts originally developed. 

2. Active Urban Density: The idea was to form an urban web within the large area of the island which begins with formal entry space where land and boat piers arrive. The entry would connect by a meandering route of glimpsed views and suggested direction to the anchor point.
 

3. Water for Leisure and Water for Renewable Energy: Tying this physical and social context together is the theme of tidal coastal water. Environment engineers investigated that pooling seawater in shallow areas would provide a low cost, low-tech renewable energy source.

A potential identity for the island emerged. Altogether these ideas begin to define an architectonic form that although new is drawn from the physical, social and inspirational context of the island and its landside neighborhood.