Sanctuary Tunnel Garden
Architect: RAD+ar
Location: Cigombong, Indonesia
Type: Chapel, Spiritual Retreat Villa, Religious Space
Year: 2025
Photographs: Ernest Theofilus
The following description is courtesy of the designers. The ‘Light and Truth at the End of the Tunnel’ inspired project aims to explore how religious architecture is evolving by incorporating modernist influences in spatial design while preserving its spiritual essence. These interventions replace or complement the intricate ornamentation and natural materials traditionally associated with sacred spaces by showcasing the raw beauty of its pristine site.
This chapel, commissioned as a private retreat villa and space for prayer on a rural estate near the city of Bogor, Indonesia, seeks to establish a profound yet subtle relationship between architecture and the surrounding extensive nature. It features an inverted, ambiguous tunnel space nestled in between, alongside a retreat villa that immerses visitors in silence, awe, and timeless devotion, allowing them to escape the hectic pace of city life—reflecting spirituality itself.
The design redefines sacred spaces through a modernist lens by employing a repetition of the simplicity found in downslope archaic exoskeleton structures. These structures regularly bridge a new terraced building and spaces through juxtaposed ramping circulation, leading into the irregular existing and dense woods. The architecture possesses a unique character that crafts a space transcending the physical realm, bridging into a spiritual journey, and creating both a physical and a non-physical tunnel that penetrates vast, open nature. This approach enables these structures (light, scale, harmony, and contrast) to achieve a universal appeal while still reflecting their cultural and spiritual foundations.
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The building features a program consisting of three major spaces: a Semi-Public Chapel, a Semi-Public Mother Mary Spiritual Garden, and a Private Retreat Main Villa & Guest Villa. The tunnel-like spaces are carved from a single block and intersect with many inverted spaces filled with giant existing trees, shrouded in mist. The chapel includes areas with varying levels of intimacy, created through flowing geometries and dramatic lighting. Covering less than 10% of the site’s footprint, the design integrates seamlessly into the natural terrain, hiding and waiting to be discovered. The undulating structure, separated from the all-glass walls and windows, creates an open 360-degree view that is transparent and approachable from all sides. This design fosters an indoor-outdoor experience—a gesture that is as profane as it is sacred.
The ground floor’s smaller sacred space is seamlessly connected to bodies of water on both ends, featuring free-form natural terraces that merge with a manmade waterfall. The scale of the space and its natural light render it both landscape and architecture, alluding to past gatherings outdoors. The sacred space of the chapel serves as the floating corpus of Jesus, acting as the climax spiritual space illuminated by the light at the end of the tunnel.
Project Details
- Project Name: Sanctuary Tunnel Garden
- Office Name: RAD+AR
- Office Website: radarchitecture.net
- Instagram: @radarchitects
- Completion Year: 2025
- Gross Built Area (m2/ ft2): 650 m2
- Project Location: Cigombong, Indonesia
- Type: Chapel, Spiritual Retreat Villa, Religious Space
- Lead Architects: Partogi Pandiangan, Antonius Richard Rusli
- Photographer: Ernest Theofilus
