Arqura Studio

Biophilic Design and the Conditions for Thought

The association between nature and calm is now widely accepted. Time spent in natural environments has been shown to lower cortisol, improve mood, restore attention and reduce rumination. Yet much of this knowledge has been reduced to surface gestures in design: vertical gardens, plant walls, timber accents. The term biophilic

Peter Zumthor and the Felt Weight of Atmosphere

When architects speak about atmosphere, the term often slips into the abstract. It resists measurement, avoids reduction and tends to be described in metaphors. In Atmospheres, a short book adapted from a 2003 lecture, Peter Zumthor doesn’t try to define the term in technical language. Instead, he circles it

The Quiet Room: Designing for Withdrawal in Everyday Life

Not every home needs a meditation room. But every home, and every workplace, hotel, clinic or school needs somewhere to withdraw. Somewhere unprogrammed, quiet and psychologically off-limits to interruption. In architectural terms, we often call this a "quiet room," but the principle is broader: how do we design

Stillness in Concrete: Tadao Ando’s Church of Light

Few buildings have been more widely referenced in discussions of silence in architecture than Tadao Ando’s Church of Light in Ibaraki, Japan. Yet what makes the space truly still is not its form alone, but its restraint. The quiet logic of subtraction over addition. Completed in 1989, the church

Chapel Of Silence By Associates Architecture

Located on the top of a valley in a little town in the province of Brescia, Italy, architect’s firm Associates Architecture has constructed a secular chapel in the woodlands of Botticino.  Named  ‘Chapel of Silence’, this six meters long, six meters high and three meters wide construction is situated

Odilon Redon’s The Art of Silence

In these noisy times, it is hard to find oases of silence. Psychotherapist Gunilla Norris observes: “Silence is something like an endangered species.” In places of quiet, we can meditate and wait for messages from Spirit. “My drawings inspire, and are not defined. They place us, as does music, on