ARCHITECTURE THESIS: GRACE SPACE

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Sufi Mystic Shams Tabrezi advocated that love was the most important element in the quest for God. He believed that more important than the love for God was the love for other human beings.

“If you want to strengthen your faith, you will need to soften inside. For your faith to be rock solid, your heart needs to be as soft as a feather. Through an illness, accident, loss or fright, one way or another, we are all faced with incidents that teach us how to become less selfish and judgmental and more compassionate and generous. Yet some of us learn the lesson and manage to become milder, while some others end up becoming even harsher than before…”

Using the analogy presented in this saying by Shams Tabrezi, the design involves a deep contrast in all aspects such as solid/void, light/shadow, material and form.

The Grace Space is a multi-faith religious centre that aims to promote religious tolerance in the country of Pakistan. The Grace Space takes on Le Corbusier's "Savoir Habiter" which means to teach people how to live.

Architecture as an art form has the ability to alter and play with the emotions of humans which is something that my building will try to achieve. I want my building to act as a learning experience for the people who visit. The Grace Space will remind everyone what it means to love and what it means to hate and what damage it causes to us and the people around us. It will remind everyone about what could have been the nation of Pakistan, a nation free from hatred and bigotry and it will show them what it has become.

The South side of the building houses most major religious facilities which includes a Church, a Hindu Temple, a Zoroastrian Temple, a Mosque and a Gurudwara, while in the North you'll find ancillary facilities such as Display Areas, Soup Kitchen, Offices, Library, Lecture Halls and Conference Rooms.

The use of light can lead to very diverse feelings. Religions have made use of these experiences to convey the mystic aspects of their respective deities — accordingly, so do their erected buildings. Architectural features like high walls, ceilings and vaulting
must be lit to emphasize wide, open areas, effectively reinforcing the feeling of grandeur that one expects from a sacred space. This is typically done with indirect pendants, cove lighting, or artfully hidden indirect wall packs.