Temple of Apocalypse

— Ritual-to-Landscape Spatial Design

Duration: Aug 2023 – Dec 2024
Tools: Rhino, Photoshop, Id, Framer

Project Summary

This project translates the Tibetan celestial burial ritual into a legible landscape sequence, using the ritual itself as a spatial script. Rather than designing isolated objects, the work constructs a path–node system that corresponds to each stage of the ceremony—from farewell and chanting, to transportation, to the climax and closure—so that philosophical themes (death, transformation, and return to nature) become spatially experienced through movement, thresholds, and changing intensity.

Background & Problem Context

Current situation and location analysis

The project chose the high-altitude landscape of Seda as its backdrop: dense settlements and high levels of human activity; upon entering the mountains, the environment gradually becomes sparse and open, with wind and topography taking precedence.

This transition "from city to nature" provided the topographical narrative basis for my subsequent deconstruction of the ritual into a spatial sequence.

Preliminary Analysis

Philosophy Analysis

Sky burial is seen as an expression of a worldview about life, death, and returning to nature. Different religions have different understandings of life and death.

Ritual Disassembly

I have broken down the traditional sky burial process into several key stages (such as the final rites, farewell and wrapping, chanting farewell prayers, transportation, burial, and closing), and abstracted each stage into a designable spatial node:

Each node corresponds to a different participant structure (relatives / monks / ritual performers)

Symbolic Language Conversion

  • Condole: Convergence, cohesion, low center of gravity

  • Funeral: Order, ritual boundaries, procession

  • Prey: Broken, scattered, taken away

  • Ascent: Vertical, upward, lightening

  • Worship: Axis, orientation, stillness

  • Chant: Repetition, rhythm, circulation

Spatial sequence generation

Next, I distributed the ritual nodes along a walkable mountain path, forming a sequence "from settlement to nature".

  • Step 1 | Wrap the body: Family members participate, dense crowd, urban environment

  • Step 2 | Chanting & Farewell: Chanting and bidding farewell, crowd thins out

  • Step 3 | Carry the body: Single/small group transport, entering the mountain path

  • Step 4 | Celestial burial: Arriving at the ceremony platform, fewest participants, most open environment

Final scenario design

Landscape Rendering I–IV

To make the emotional changes in the sequence "visible," I used four collage renderings after modeling to express the stages of the ritual experience:

Monument Prototype

Finally, I further specified the "conclusion phase" as a prototype of a monumental structure.

  • As the final vessel of the ritual, it carries the meaning of "purification/return."

  • Through floor plans and structural breakdown diagrams, its operational logic (incineration, exhaust, collection and ascent) is clearly defined.

  • The installation translates "dissipation, ascent, and return to the wind" into spatial actions, forming an experiential conclusion.