In the lively thrum of De La Salle University's Biñan campus, CAZA's design for Santuario de La Salle provides a hushed haven, allowing individuals to commune with faith, community, and the natural world.
This isn't an ecclesiastical edifice bound by convention, but a dynamic melange of volumetric forms, revamping traditional notions of sacred space. The architects' deft handling of forms and voids converges to fashion an architectural experience that celebrates both the individual and the collective, akin to faith's capacity to unite disparate individuals in a shared spiritual journey.
Visually, Santuario de La Salle prompts curiosity with its organic amorphous form. Its playful aggregate of circular volumes is elegantly enveloped by a rhythmic exterior skin of vertical slats, infusing the imposing structure with an air of permeability and levity. This porous facade, almost a veil, simultaneously obscures and invites, filtering the frenetic university life into tranquil introspection. Internally, the building's material narrative transitions from the rugged honesty of its exterior to the tactile warmth of softwoods and brass, forging an intimate dialogue between worshipper and space.
Navigating the building's interior unfolds like a pilgrimage, its spaces imbued with a gentle choreography of faith. A sequence of interconnected circular rooms, each with distinct spatial constraints and degrees of formality, orchestrates an unhurried progression from the profane to the sacred. The vaulted central core, a drum of contemplative silence, forms the sanctum of this spiritual odyssey. Its celestial ceiling, arched akin to the heavenly bodies' orbits, silently testifies to our infinitesimal existence in the universe's grand design. This core is washed in a constellation of pendant lights, their scattered illumination emulating a star-strewn night, the clearstory window a solitary star guiding pilgrims along their spiritual journey.
By reinventing the spatial lexicon of sacred architecture, CAZA's Santuario de La Salle crafts a place of introspection and belonging, fostering connections that span individuals, community, and nature. As an architectural ode to spiritual inclusivity, it anchors itself as an integral part of the cultural and ecological fabric, bridging the gap between faith and everyday life, blurring boundaries to engage the sacred in the secular world.
