The result is a double-sided pedestal staggering in its ascent, thinning out as it reaches the sky above: autonomous but also modular, suggesting multiple uses and simultaneously acting as structure, function, and ornament.

The staggered module reminisces a stepped verticality, which typologically prevails throughout our history and culture. It renovates past assumptions, proposing a contemporary language for a historical vernacular.

The massing strategy of AlMusalla starts by acknowledging the oculus as a reference parameter, coupled with the qibla orientation and subsequent grid acting as spatial coordinates for an imagined framed void, around which peripheral membranes start snapping, composing spaces of different hierarchies.

The Musalla becomes an intermediary link between its surrounding exterior and interior realms, serving as a protective shell enclosing communal spaces while regulating interactions with the Hajj Terminal’s environment.

It is a wireframe that embraces and retreats from its surroundings to cultivate serenity, and to allow for new meditative possibilities.

Read more about AlMusalla and visit the 2025 Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.