Chapel in Addis Ababa: Sustainable Architecture Rooted in Stone, Faith, and Landscape

Chapel is a compelling example of sustainable architecture shaped by land, memory, material, and faith. Designed for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the project explores how sacred architecture can emerge from the specific conditions of a place rather than being imposed upon it. Instead of treating the chapel as an isolated object, the design positions it as part of a larger ecological and cultural landscape, where stone, vegetation, rainwater, and community movement become essential architectural elements.

The project is by Liza Zhadenova,Aleksandra Kanukova, and Liza Gubskaya. It presents a chapel that captures the simplicity and beauty of the rocky landscape while demonstrating the value of stone usage in contemporary sacred architecture. Through its underground prayer hall, aboveground tower, protective stone walls, rainwater strategy, and carefully framed light, the proposal becomes more than a building. It becomes a quiet spatial ritual rooted in Ethiopian terrain and Christian heritage.

Honorable Mention entry of Eco-Chapel

Addis Ababa as Context

The chapel is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a city positioned at the foot of Mount Entoto and shaped by a dramatic highland geography. The proposal identifies the site as a plot of approximately 48,800 square meters in the Bole borough of Addis Ababa. This setting is important because the project does not separate architecture from its environmental and urban context. It begins with the land, the city, and the pressures acting upon both.

The proposal responds to several site concerns, including declining soil fertility, dependence on rain due to limited alternative water sources, the disappearance of forested areas, and cattle trampling the landscape. These issues are not treated as background information. They become direct design drivers.

As a result, Chapel uses sustainable architecture as a framework for ecological repair and spiritual gathering. It proposes community participation through planting trees, introduces stone walls to protect the green landscape from cattle, and uses the roof of the greenhouse to collect rainwater. The chapel is therefore not only a sacred place. It is also part of a larger landscape strategy that supports vegetation, water awareness, and protection of the site’s identity.

Sustainable Architecture as a Sacred Landscape Strategy

The strength of the project lies in how it expands the meaning of sustainable architecture. Here, sustainability is not limited to energy systems or technical performance. It is connected to cultural continuity, material restraint, water collection, ecological protection, and community stewardship.

The design proposes a landscape where residents can gather, move, pray, plant, and engage with nature. The small interventions shown across the site create a layered environment rather than a singular monument. A green island is protected by stone, rainwater is collected through the greenhouse roof, and the chapel itself is embedded into the ground to reduce visual dominance.

This approach makes the project sensitive to both natural and urban conditions. The chapel does not fight the landscape. It works with it. It uses stone not as ornament, but as structure, boundary, memory, and atmosphere. The result is an architecture that feels grounded, silent, and deeply connected to place.

Inspired by Ethiopian Rock-Hewn Architecture

A major conceptual reference for Chapel is Ethiopia’s long tradition of rock-hewn churches. The project draws inspiration from the sacred architecture of Lalibela, one of the most significant centers of Ethiopian Christianity. Lalibela is known for monolithic churches carved into the earth, where prayer, light, stone, and silence create an intense spiritual experience.

The proposal translates this heritage into a contemporary chapel. Rather than copying historical forms, it studies the spatial character of Ethiopian cliff churches and underground sacred spaces. The interior of the chapel is imagined as being hewn into a rock face, creating a space where architecture feels excavated rather than constructed.

This gives the chapel a strong relationship with memory. The building becomes a continuation of a spiritual architectural lineage, while also responding to modern ecological concerns. In this sense, the project is both ancient and contemporary. It looks back to Ethiopia’s sacred stone traditions while proposing a future-oriented model for sustainable architecture.

The Chapel as Two Levels: Underground and Aboveground

The chapel is organized across two primary levels: an underground prayer hall and an aboveground tower. This dual arrangement creates a powerful relationship between earth and sky.

The underground level contains the main prayer hall, which is designed to hold up to 300 people for mass liturgies. This space is protected, inward-looking, and contemplative. It is connected to a courtyard and secondary functions, including a storage room, baptistery, bathroom, and priest residence. The underground setting gives the prayer hall a sense of shelter and introspection, allowing visitors to step away from the noise of the city and enter a slower, quieter architectural world.

Aboveground, the tower carries a rock element and serves as a small sacred space for one or two people. This intimate vertical space contrasts with the larger collective prayer hall below. While the underground chapel supports communal worship, the tower creates a place for solitude, reflection, and personal prayer.

The two levels together express a complete spiritual journey. Visitors descend into the earth for collective worship and encounter the tower as a marker of light, stone, and vertical connection.

Stone as Structure, Memory, and Atmosphere

Stone is the central material idea of the project. The chapel uses Ethiopian tuff, the material from which ancient churches were built, to connect the proposal to local building history. The exterior captures the simplicity and beauty of the rocky architecture of the landscape, while the interior creates a carved, cavernous atmosphere.

The design avoids unnecessary visual complexity. Smooth stone surfaces define the built structure, while the altar is hewn into the rock. This contrast between refined construction and raw geology is one of the project’s most important architectural gestures. It allows the chapel to feel both designed and discovered.

Stone also becomes a protective device. The project proposes small stone walls to prevent cattle from damaging the forested landscape. In this way, stone works at multiple scales. It forms the sacred interior, defines the chapel’s architectural language, and supports the ecological protection of the wider site.

Light, Reflection, and the Glass Cross

Light plays a crucial role in the spatial and spiritual experience of the chapel. The design includes an opening tower that allows natural light to illuminate the chapel altar. This single movement of light gives the underground space a sacred focus, transforming the altar into a quiet point of orientation.

The cross is made of glass, symbolizing transparency of thought. When sunlight reaches the cross, it is reflected onto the wall, creating a projection that can be seen during prayer. This moment is central to the chapel’s atmosphere. It does not rely on decorative excess. Instead, it uses material, light, and shadow to create intimacy.

The effect recalls the small windows of historic sacred buildings, where narrow openings allow controlled beams of light to enter heavy stone interiors. In Chapel, the glass cross and natural light create a halo-like effect, reinforcing the connection between architecture, prayer, and the movement of the sun.

Architecture as a Space of Gathering

The project also studies the relationship between people, sound, and interaction. One of the conceptual diagrams compares the collision of stones to the gathering of people. When stones collide, a sound wave is created, gradually fading but leaving a response behind. Similarly, when people gather, they interact with one another and carry away a particle of knowledge.

This idea gives the chapel a social dimension. The building is not only a place for individual contemplation. It is also a place where residents communicate, exchange experience, and strengthen community bonds. The design acknowledges that sacred architecture can be a civic space as much as a religious one.

The site strategy supports this reading. Paths, planting zones, protected natural areas, and gathering spaces allow the chapel to become part of daily life. It becomes a place where faith, ecology, and community can overlap.

Preserving Identity Through Landscape

One of the most meaningful ambitions of the project is to save the identity of the place. The proposal does this by resisting generic architectural form. Instead, it develops a language from the surrounding landscape, local stone traditions, ecological challenges, and Ethiopian Christian memory.

The design supports nature through planting and forest protection. It creates a peaceful sensory environment by combining rock, water, vegetation, shadow, and silence. It also encourages communication between residents by making the site a shared landscape rather than a closed religious compound.

This layered approach gives the chapel its cultural and environmental depth. It does not simply occupy Addis Ababa. It listens to Addis Ababa. It understands the site as a living territory shaped by climate, people, faith, and ecological vulnerability.

Rainwater, Greenhouse, and Ecological Repair

The project’s sustainable architecture strategy includes a practical response to water scarcity and rainfall dependence. By using the roof of the greenhouse to collect rainwater, the proposal introduces a simple but important ecological mechanism. This rainwater strategy supports the broader goal of making the site more resilient and less dependent on unstable water access.

The greenhouse also reinforces the project’s commitment to planting and regeneration. It becomes part of the chapel’s extended program, linking worship with cultivation and environmental care. This is especially important in a context where the proposal identifies the loss of forested areas and declining soil fertility as major concerns.

Through these decisions, the chapel suggests that sacred architecture can become an agent of ecological awareness. Worship is not separated from care for the land. The project turns environmental responsibility into a spiritual and communal act.

A Peaceful Interior Carved from Rock

The prayer hall is designed as an intimate space with a powerful material presence. Its rock-hewn altar, smooth stone construction, and controlled natural light create an atmosphere of stillness. The interior does not need excessive ornamentation because the spatial experience itself is devotional.

The underground character of the chapel helps create acoustic and emotional quietness. The sense of descent reinforces the transition from the outside world to the sacred interior. Visitors move from landscape to courtyard, from courtyard to underground hall, and from hall to altar. This sequence gives the building a ceremonial rhythm.

The chapel’s interior also reflects the project’s central idea: the beauty of rocky architecture. Rather than hiding the rawness of stone, the design celebrates it. The rock face becomes both wall and symbol, both natural matter and sacred surface.

Contemporary Chapel Architecture with Local Meaning

Chapel is a strong example of contemporary chapel architecture because it avoids the typical separation between form, function, and context. Every part of the proposal is connected to a larger idea. The underground hall responds to spiritual gathering. The tower brings natural light. The stone walls protect the landscape. The greenhouse collects rainwater. The planting strategy supports ecological recovery. The glass cross transforms light into a sacred marker.

The project’s restraint is one of its greatest strengths. It does not attempt to dominate the site. It creates a low, grounded, almost hidden architecture that allows the landscape to remain present. Even the tower, the most visible element of the project, is conceived as a rock-bearing structure rather than a conventional religious icon.

This makes the chapel feel specific to its place. It could not be easily moved to another city without losing meaning. Its identity comes from Addis Ababa, Ethiopian rock-hewn churches, local environmental pressures, and the tactile presence of stone.

Chapel by Liza Zhadenova, Aleksandra Kanukova, and Liza Gubskaya offers a thoughtful model for sustainable architecture rooted in faith, landscape, and material memory. Set within Addis Ababa, the project responds to ecological challenges while drawing from Ethiopia’s rich tradition of rock-hewn sacred spaces.

Through its underground prayer hall, aboveground tower, glass cross, Ethiopian tuff, rainwater collection system, greenhouse, and protective stone walls, the chapel becomes a layered architectural proposal. It is a place for worship, solitude, community gathering, and environmental care.

The project demonstrates that chapel architecture can be more than a symbolic building. It can become a living part of the landscape. It can protect nature, preserve identity, collect water, support community, and create a deeply spiritual experience through the simplest architectural elements: stone, light, earth, and silence.