# 03 Architecture of Remembrance

Studio - 4th semester

Memory of place as context
The site was located on former agricultural land where two brothers once built their homes facing each other. Over the years, their descendants have migrated abroad, leaving the land and built structures largely unused. The current generation now seeks to re-engage with their heritage by reimagining the ancestral property as a space that serves the public. The intent was to transform the existing structures and landscape into a space of collective value, while preserving the emotional and historical essence of the site.

Concept -- body and soul
A house becomes a home because of the people who inhabit it. Once those people leave, what remains is only an empty shell, a structure without life, like a body without its soul.

This idea forms the central concept of the project. The existing structural frame, preserved, restored, and reconstructed from the remains of the previous building, represents the body. It carries the memory of what once existed and acts as a physical trace of the past.

The newly introduced solid mass represents the soul. In plan, this mass is deliberately tilted and shifted away from the existing frame, creating the impression of a soul gradually separating from or leaving its body. The contrast between the light, skeletal framework and the solid built volume strengthens this relationship between absence and presence, memory and life, body and soul.

Function -- meditation center
The project functions as a meditation and community center, designed to bring people together while providing an atmosphere of calm, reflection, and inner connection.

Images

- View: Render of the remembrance project (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/render.jpg)
- Plan: Rendered plan, body and soul (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/plan.jpg)
- Section: Rendered section, body and soul (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/section.jpg)
- Concept: Conceptual model of body and soul (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/concept.jpg)
- Model: Model of the remembrance project (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/model.jpg)
- Model: Model photograph (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/model-1.jpg)
- Model: Model photograph (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/model-2.jpg)
- Model: Model photograph (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/model-3.jpg)
- Model: Model photograph (https://www.himakshishah.com/work/03/model-4.jpg)

[Selected work](https://www.himakshishah.com/portfolio)