The Enclave Sanctuary

Program Function: the Intent for modern Babylon:

This thesis proposes to investigate on the very site where the first civilization of man began. Babylon is 50 miles south of modern day Baghdad, unoccupied, uninhabited yet its remains have been tampered by its own tension of warfare and layers of conquest. To this day Babylon is a site for all origins to unite. According to the ancient scriptures, it was in Babylon where we all began. It is as of now a useless void but a sacred one to occupy. Dominated by tales that speaks of the tension between man and God, the intensity. That broke us into fragments, from a unified language to diverse confusion; what we call as the birth of nation.


The program will rest on this very foundation. An enclave that activates through the experience of history and the modern interaction of its inhabitants. A place for contemplation and reverence, learning and discovery. It will be a place of release , a refuge sanctuary from what is happening beyond its existing boundaries. A city within a city that speaks of both worlds. A form that ties its origins with its future.
















[image above: an abstraction of the site in tension (refering to the shift and reconfiguration of the actual elements in the site)