Ukrainian architecture firm Makhno Studio has imagined three spherical rooms for a sacred complex in the midst of Ukrainian nature. 

Called KHRAM - Temple of Three Religions, the 600-square-metre complex is envisioned as a place for "prayer, reflection and meditation" in the Poltava region, Ukraine. 

Makhno Studio designed a place to communicate with the inner and higher self. The development is in the conceptual phase, but the studio is planning to build after the war. 

The complex, acting like a lotus seed, consists of an open square, a three-dimensional figured wall at the entrance, and three separate spherical rooms for solitude, prayer, and meditation in small architectural niches.

According to the studio, the project evokes a lotus fruit with three seeds - a symbol of spiritual potential on the path to enlightenment.

Thin horizontal lines surround the rooms and filter light, allowing the buildings to be perceived from afar.

"The large, rounded square in front of the entrance is where you greet the temple and leave everything worldly behind," said Makhno Studio. 

"Leave your shoes here on the wooden floor and walk through the three-dimensional wall inside."

The team has created a 3D wall that functions as a boundary between the mundane and the spiritual. 

The wall is made of QUADROPOD ceramic blocks assembled in an elegant three-dimensional pattern. Additionally, the wall is also symbolic, because KHRAM has no further fences.

Next, guests are able to enter one of the three spheres of the complex. The spheres are large sloping balls with through holes made of adobe blocks - a mixture of unbaked clay, straw and sand.

"These "living walls" breathe, i.e. absorb excessive humidity, fumes, all kinds of pollution, viruses and microorganisms, and shield electromagnetic fields and radio waves. They protect against cold in winter and heat in summer," the firm added. 

"There is a niche for a fire inside the sphere: light it to make a tea party or just cover it up and leave the space free."

"Good. Then we leave you alone with the Creator."

Visitors can come here at dawn, when the first rays of the sun break through the lace of the temple wall, reaching the very heart. They can come in the afternoon, when the light creates a majestic picture inside the spheres, crossing the prayerful darkness. 

It can be in the evening, when the glow of the hearth through the openings of the spheres goes to the very horizon to dance with the stars, galaxies, and the entire Universe.

Makhno Studio designed retreats within the fluid volumes that resemble "a futuristic cave or a rock chiselled by the winds" in the Kyiv region, Ukraine. 

The studio also proposed a visitor centre featuring "a bulbous" volume towards the bank of the Dnipro river in Ukraine.

Project facts

Project name: KHRAM - Temple of Three Religions

Architects: Makhno Studio

Location: Ukraine

Area: 600m2

Year: 2023

All images courtesy of Makhno Studio.

> via Makhno Studio

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