Intertwine of Catastrophe and Worship

The dynamic by which worship as a principle and catastrophe as an event are related is very complex.

In catastrophe situations, specifically when the use of tents or other deployable temporary structures are used to house those who are displaced, there exists a type of communal quality to the situation of living that arises. There is a stripping down of the individual’s preconceptions of others, and of their own religiously-exclusive principles; what becomes most important is the closeness of the people who all find themselves linked by the catastrophe affecting them all.

With this communal aspect comes the idea of enclosure and inclusion. The very notion of enclosure runs deep within the collective ideology of religion and faith. Emile Durkheim’s notion of the sacred and the profane, refer to ideas of inside and outside, inclusive and exclusive and how they are a central characteristic of religion. An enclosure is a physical manifestation of these ideas of inside and outside. It is a way to act simply and very generally in a unifying manner.

A structure that could create and foster this idea of physical enclosure and inclusion, in a state where the concept of inclusion in a community and openness, would be creating an incredible dynamic. The structure would not infringe upon these two strong ideas of inclusion, but instead but strengthen them, tying them together and unifying them. It would strengthen the notion of community by not only providing shelter for the user, but by also demanding the user to respond to its most basic instincts of human compassion.

Filed under: manifesto, phase 1: research, program, site, worship + belief