AIA IDKC Project Highlight:
Sanctuary by Doug Staker of Squaremoon Studio
What and where is this project?
Sanctuary is an architectural art installation series that uses a study in sacred space to question the relationship between religion and the LGBTQ+ community. The fourth iteration was presented in association with the Utah Pride Festival (Salt Lake City), Rexburg (Idaho) Pride Festival, and Westend Church Pride Celebration (New York City) in June 2024. The project is created with temporary materials at an architectural scale creating a contemporary take on sacred space in both form and program. It attempts to challenge norms of social and religious behavior by reconstructing sacred space from scratch. The result reveals that both social constructs and religious forms can be rethought to reflect today’s values if communities desire it.
What population does it serve?
Sanctuary’s approach to sacred space centers on creating an experience in which people are invited to participate in the formation of spaces that reflect their values. The structure is built by volunteers and adorned with their personal experiences. Witnessing the inscriptions of others focuses on sharing and validating other perspectives. These experiences are often defining, personal, and deeply held. By focusing on housing shared experiences, the structure is allowed to grow into a form that reflects its origins. It bears references to the history of sacred architecture while also generating new forms through technology and innovation.
How does it enhance its faith community and the community overall?
Sanctuary relies on being presented in an unexpected context. Arising on a sidewalk or street and being formed of mundane materials, the experience relies on some element of surprise. Participants respond to an invitation to share their experiences of joy, hope, and sorrow, which due to the context are centered on the LGBTQ+ experience. The structure itself relies on a sense of monumentality drawn not from sheer scale but by the defiance of the expectation of its materials and context. The structural cells house colored panels, through which light blends together to create dynamic lighting and color effects. The space combines with the experience to transcend the otherwise banal nature of the materials and location.
Building from cardboard allows the project to sidestep the involvement of a religious institution in the exploration of sacred space. As such, both the architectural and social elements can be rethought or reimagined. The cardboard cells are designed with parametric modeling, laser cut, and then folded and assembled by volunteers. It brings together the ancient technology of bricks and arches with high tech computer modeling. The cells are covered in colored panels, a reclaimed material donated by the company 3Form. This reference to stained glass windows becomes an occupiable kaleidoscope of colored light, a convergence of the historical with experiential innovation.
Occupants move through the main sanctum and can wander into three flanking chapels, each themed for the sharing of joy, hope, or sorrow. As the experience unfolds, the written expressions of participants become a physical part of the architecture. Physical form and shared experience combine to create a space that houses meaningful connection and validation, rediscovering the essence of sacred space not through religious ritual, but through human interaction. If this misaligns with traditional forms, it can be a valuable experience in analyzing familiar forms and practices.
How could others adapt it?
As installation art, and due to its temporary materials, Sanctuary lasts for a brief period. Its principles regarding the elective nature of social grouping regarding sacred experience can be adopted in the design of any sacred space. Sanctuary’s assertion of the ability for humans to determine the nature and values of their sacred structures and how that can generate modern variations on form, can be instructive in larger scale design. Reexamining the structure’s embodied values and presenting forms that are true to its most core principles can reverberate in design, religious tradition, and beyond. Sanctuary demonstrates the ability of Architecture to be an opportunity for rediscovering and reexamining core values and fundamental human experience.
How can interested parties learn more?
Photos and explanation of Sanctuary 2024, as well as prior versions of the project, can be found on the project website:
or on the website of Squaremoon Studio:
This project is featured in a documentary film called Sanctuary. The film profiles the project, the artist and his family, and their personal experiences, and extends into the surrounding issues of religion’s relationship to the LGBTQ+ experience. The film premiered at the Soho Film Festival in New York in September 2025. It is currently on a screening tour and is available for scheduling screenings through the film’s website. The film will be available for streaming in summer of 2026. Links can be found on the Sanctuary project website.