Presence & Place

In the context of New Zealand’s increasingly secular identity, the potential for spiritual experiences within the contemporary architectural landscape is often overlooked, contributing to a growing disconnect between the built environment and its inhabitants, and hindering connections to place. Consequently, this research addresses this disconnect by exploring spiritual typologies in a society shifting away from religious agendas, while engaging with the atmospheric qualities of place. This thesis asks how architecture can facilitate a spiritual experience to connect people to place. A design-led methodology guides this inquiry, employing research for and research through design. An iterative process explores three projects; design experiments, followed by two architectural outcomes that increase in scale and complexity. Drawing on existing theoretical frameworks, this research examines how diverse identities engage with spiritual space, and how ephemeral and atmospheric qualities of site can be employed in the design process. The first design chapter explores a series of experiments, investigating materiality, texture, and light to form spiritual atmospheres. The mid-scale design investigates spirituality and atmosphere at the architectural scale, through an observation tower and a semi-subterranean retreat. The final design chapter addresses collective spirituality within the urban context, through an urban farm and arts studio in central Christchurch. These architectural outcomes, alongside the iterative design inquiries explored throughout the thesis, emphasise the potential of spiritual experiences to strengthen people’s relationship to place within Aotearoa’s unique context.