monastery for Agnostics

Semester: Final Thesis Semester - Degree Project
Critic: Elena Canovas

Brief: Design Thesis, self-proposed project addressing St. Louis’s relationship with the Mississippi River and the risks of flooding within the regions’ vast floodplain.

Project Description: Monastery for Agnostics: a place in the In-between: in-between the river and the bluff, in-between faith and doubt, in-between temporary and permanent, in-between human and cosmic time. The program includes: a crematorium, celebration spaces, visitor and monk accommodations, and a contemplation path that explores monuments to time.

My approach looks at architecture in a volatile landscape and how the built environment might become an entirely different landscape at nature's whim. Once it has flooded, what will the remains of the place tell future visitors? And why, if we know it will flood and become obsolete, will we build there anyways if not to prove to others that it is risky?