Youssef Hachchane 

Sanctum Ordinis is a foundation of civic architecture thesis that reinvests the government building with sacred spatial order a universal sanctuary grounded in geometry, symbolism, and the collective identity. Nestled in Pyeongtaek-si, South Korea  an ambitious industrial city  the project envisions a new City Hall's and a City Council Building that crosses the classic boundaries of civic architecture. It synthesizes sacred geometry, especially the mandala and the pyramidal form, to create a spatial language that expresses harmony, lucidity, and permanence. 

The proposal is motivated by, what if architecture for governance can transcend function and offer a lasting space for contemplation, equilibrium and moral anchoring for its citizenry? Employing a mandala based plan, which is the organizational spine of the family of buildings, it draws on ancient geometric systems from Buddhist temples, Islamic architecture and traditional systems of proportions. Every layer reveals a pilgrimage  expanding from a holy core outward — articulating the building’s circulation, program, and experiential sequence. 

The pyramid form roots the project in the ground, but also lifts itself up to the heavens  a motif of ascendency, immutability, and order in public life. The architecture serves not only as a vessel for governance but for shared memory, ritual, and civic engagement. 

Sanctum Ordinis contests the contemporary assumption of public buildings as neutral or utilitarian. Instead, it argues that civic space can inspire that it can determine not just the flow of bodies but the consciousness of a people. It takes on a modern mandala for the city grounding its people in sequence and freeing their collective engine through order of form, light and spatial clarity. 

Evoking sacred geometry in the context of civic structure, the project suggests that architecture forms a metaphysical and physical structure in which governance, culture, and universal order coexist.