Circle of Life: A Chapel That Grows a Forest Around Itself

What if a chapel's most important act of faith were planting a forest? Circle of Life begins with a deceptively simple observation: Ethiopian churches have long been surrounded by protective forest patches, visible even on satellite imagery as green islands in otherwise dense urban or agricultural landscapes. Rather than designing a sacred building and then landscaping around it, this proposal reverses the sequence entirely. Architecture becomes temporary scaffolding for a long-term ecological process, with sunshade structures standing in for mature tree canopies until a real forest grows tall enough to take over.

Designed by Margarita Morozova, Circle of Life received Editor's Choice recognition in the Eco-Chapel competition. Sited in Medhanealem, Addis Ababa, the project preserves an existing church while wrapping it in a living landscape system that combines worship, forest restoration, ecological education, public gathering, and local food culture within a single circular spatial language. The circle here is not decorative. It is a planning module, an environmental strategy, and a cultural metaphor drawn from the moon, the movement of seasons, and the ripples on a pond.

Architecture as Temporary Canopy

The project's core method is what Morozova calls "environment imitation." In a natural forest, mature trees regulate sunlight, slow rainfall, shield seedlings from wind, and create the stable microclimate that allows younger plants to establish themselves. Circle of Life translates that ecological function directly into built form. Octagonal pavilions with ventilated cupolas act as sunshade structures in open areas earmarked for future forest growth. Their role is explicitly temporary: as new trees mature and begin forming their own canopy, the artificial structures can be removed. The architecture does not compete with nature; it holds the space until nature is ready.

Inside these pavilions, the material palette reinforces the ecological logic. Woven ceilings filter light in patterns that recall a forest floor. Curved brick counters and open garden views blur the boundary between shelter and landscape. These are not hermetically sealed interiors. They are threshold spaces, designed to make the surrounding planting visible and present at all times, reminding occupants that the building exists in service of the ground around it.

Ripples on Water: A Circular Master Plan

The master plan reads like ripples spreading across water. A grid of circles with different radii generates every element: amphitheatre seating, washroom pavilions, clustered gathering areas, ponds, and boardwalks. Each circle has a specific programmatic role, but together they form a larger ecological and social network. The circular module is flexible enough to be moved, resized, repeated, or adapted, making the system scalable beyond this single site to wider Ethiopia and other territories where forest restoration and community infrastructure overlap.

The pond plan reveals how precisely this logic plays out. A circular body of water holds yellow platforms accessible via an orange-and-yellow boardwalk, creating a landscape feature that is simultaneously a gathering space, a water management element, and a habitat for aquatic planting. Public functions are deliberately pulled away from the existing church itself. By relocating community activities to these satellite circles, the proposal allows the sacred building to regain a stronger sense of wilderness and spiritual quiet, restoring the traditional Ethiopian relationship between church and forest.

Floating Platforms and Living Water

The pond rendering makes the project's ambitions tangible. White circular platforms sit among waterlilies beneath a canopy of established trees, with figures using the space for contemplation and balance. It is a landscape that feels ancient, though it is entirely designed. The platforms serve as meditation points, stepping stones, and ecological interfaces where visitors engage directly with the water system. The scene captures the project's central thesis: architecture should recede as nature advances, leaving behind only the lightest possible trace.

Seed Banks Under Woven Ceilings

One of the most compelling programmatic moves is the integration of ecological education directly into the chapel's community spaces. Glazed plant display shelves line the interior of a pavilion, turning living vegetation into a curated archive. Figures examine specimens beneath the same woven ceiling structure seen elsewhere in the project, reinforcing material continuity across the complex. The space functions as part nursery, part classroom, part seed bank, connecting the project's forest restoration ambitions to a pedagogy of generational knowledge transfer. It embeds the idea that growing a forest is not a construction task but a cultural practice sustained over decades.

Why This Project Matters

Circle of Life treats sustainability as a time-based relationship between built form and living systems, not as a checklist of materials or energy certifications. By studying how Ethiopian sacred forests actually function and translating those ecological patterns into architectural structures that are designed to become obsolete, Morozova proposes a fundamentally different role for the architect: not as the maker of permanent objects, but as the initiator of processes that outlast the building itself.

The project's scalability is equally significant. Because the circular planning module operates as a flexible system rather than a fixed composition, it can be deployed across different sites and contexts without losing its ecological or cultural logic. In a field where sustainability is often reduced to surface treatments, Circle of Life offers something rarer: a design methodology rooted in the patient, cyclical intelligence of forests themselves.

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About the Designers

Designer: Margarita Morozova

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Project credits: Circle of Life by Margarita Morozova Eco-Chapel (uni.xyz).