DESIGN ALCHEMY PROJECTS
Toward a Modern Sacred Architecture
By Robert Gulick
APPLEWOOD GROVE SHOPPING CENTER, Lakewood, Colorado
The arcade of this shopping center is designed with golden proportions harmonic to those in the human body. Such designs have proven to support successful business activity.
DOMAIN of LIGHT, Theme Parks
Known also as the Harmonic Module and HyperTheater, The Domain is conceived as high-tech, inter-active, multi-media sacred space. It is essentially “high” theater designed on the principles of sacred geometry where a sequence of multi-sensorial special effects experiences, formatted in the language of light and sound and complimented subtle energy fields in the context of a computer generated environment, create an experience of higher dimensional awareness. Ultimately its purpose like that of the “psi” field of the planet is to activate the biological codes of the perfected being, It is formatted for theme park venues for maximum effect and highest probability for actualization.
PYRAMID of HEALING, Telluride, Colorado
Pyramids built using the same geometries and proportions as the Egyptian Great Pyramid of Giza have been shown when aligned with the magnetic field of the planet empirically the produce an energetic field that promotes healing and growth. The geometry of the pyramid circles the square, that is it equate spirit and matter symbolically represented as circle and square. The triangle which is the cross section through the Great Pyramid are also found in the Sri Yantra, the most sacred diagram in the Hindu tantric teaching, which represents the structure and process of the multi-dimensional universe. Together these are the fundamental geometries of a healing temple which is designed here to accommodate four couples. It is entered through another pyramid which also gives access to a Kiva meditation and healing space below the main pyramid.
THE CHALICE
This design for the competition for a National monument located on Hain’s Point on the Potomac River was intended to become a national symbol for peace and a national sacred space. It gives expression to aspects of peace as:
- connection to the fundamental unity of all things…to the sacredness of life
- unity within diversity…identity with the whole, one earth and one humanity
- balance of opposites, a synergy of multi-dimensions in dynamic change
- a path, a process of experience and evolution.
The design consists of four main elements: the Gate, Garden, Path and the Chalice.
The Gate: Designed with golden proportion to acsentuate the transition from the everyday world and the entrance into sacred space.
The Garden: The Chalice sits in a great circle of unity built of marble walls with reliefs telling the story of history of Man emergence in peace. Within the Garden there are many paths, many experiences symbolizing peace within oneself, community and the world.
The Path: Peace is bpth a goal, a state to be attained and a process, a path. Both straight and curved it they take the visitor through the multi-dimensions and meanings of peace leading one in a meditation through a sequence of subtle energy points up the spiral ramp into the Chalice to the lotus center.
The Chalice: The Chalice is a great Grail, symbol of peace and transcendence…of the national quest. It is the collector of national chi designed as a mandala of circles within circles symbolizing unity and the many in one and thus the national meeting place for peace.
The Chalice an amphitheater, a silver stainless steel clad bowl crowned with a structure of golden-pink stainless steel clad over a structure made of implements of war, melted down into a sonic sculpture…the vision of a dove of peace enfolding a spinning earth in the center and ringing in the wind. Circles of lights for the nations illuminate the chalice from below. The diameter of the Chalice is one second of a degree of the circle of latitude at Washington D.C., 38°53’00”N thus commensurate, that is harmonic, as were ancient temples, to the dimension of the planet. In height it is golden proportioned as the Great Pyramid of ancient Egypt, an archetypical model of the earth and the conductor of cosmic energy into the planetary grid system.

Site Plan-Hain’s Point
CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY CHAPEL, Denver, Colorado
Designed for a mystical Christian congregation founded by Rudolph Steiner in Germany, this chapel and classroom building embodies the traditional principles of sacred design specifically to promote healing and learning. The design of the sanctuary is based on pentagonal geometry associated with perfected being, facilitating a resonance to that state while the classroom is based on the hexagram, the geometry of the cosmos, the stage upon which we live our drama. The whole is patterned on the cosmic being with its chakras contacted in sequence along the axis of the building. The inter-penetration of the pentagonal and hexagonal geometries within the three main circles of the plan generates a matrix out of which the 3 dimensional form emerges. (See “The Design of Sacred Space”)
The Crystal Domains are residential designs projected from crystalline and sacred geometries, incorporating universal principles derived from the underlying ratios and geometries that govern the unity of nature. The spaces created enhance experience and human expression… connecting one to the inner dimensions of self and world. They are environments for conscious living…for living in the light.
SANCTUARY, Faraway Ranch, San Miguel County, Coloradox`
This is a space for meditation and sacred ceremony to connect with the earth and part of a pattern of such space around the world connected on a great grid complex. The Sanctuary is designed in the form of an egg like a womb modeled on the Hopi Kiva, half buried in the ground and lit by the sky. The egg shape is a form having natural golden proportions…the curvatures generated from radius points which together generate the form of a bird. In form the entrance, roof and sanctuary unite the square, triangle and circle in a sacred geometrical pattern which unites earth and spirit. Like other sacred ritual space the Sanctuary incorporates a sequence of subtle energy centers along its central axis generating the body of the cosmic perfected being.
PEACE BELL GARDENS, National Capital Cities
This current project proposes to create an interconnected system of gardens, landmarks and plazas, dedicated to and universally symbolizing the principle of peace, in every nation and culture of the world. The gardens are sacred spaces patterned on the heart chakra are intended to nurture the awareness, the experience and celebration of peace. The focus of each garden is a “peace bell”, a sonic structure made from recycled implements of war, resonantly tuned to the earth at each location. They are supported by a pyramidal structure designed as a wave guide or an antenna, to conduct subtle energies into the earth. These sites would thus be geomantically related linking humanity in a global harmonic peace network.
EARTHGATE: A Birthing Center, Laramie, Wyoming
In ancient megalithic times women went to special places called dohlmens constructed of a flat rock supported on three standing stones. Such places were protected from local energetic grids thus protecting the new born from the sudden expose to the planet’s energies. This design develops that concept creating a sacred environment based on Platonic solids sitting atop two apartments for couples wanting to birth their child in sacred space.
CELESTIAL SANCTUM, A Retreat & Healing Center, Jamul, California
The Celestial Sanctum is designed as a spiritual retreat center with living, gathering and workshop spaces, initially to be constructed in a volcanic caldera east of San Diego. It is designed on the mandala of the Medicine Buddha, upon which is erected a pyramid as traditional design where the masculine form is raised upon and in union with the feminine pattern. The structure is supported by a circle of columns defining the inner sanctum which aligns with earth energy patterns on site and, as many temple forms, contains the seven chakras aligned on its main axis.

Mandala of the Medicine Buddha
COHEN LABYRINTH, San Miguel County, Colorado
This is a private sacred ceremonial space based on a typical seven level Cretan labyrinth. Proportions of the labyrinth are determined by the nesting of the Platonic solids in the cosmological sequence. The dimensions follow from calculations of the geophysical foot and cubit thus making the layout harmonic to the dimensions of the planet.
These are four of a series of residential projects designed within the tradition of sacred design applying the principles of sacred geometry and geomancy.
THE HOUSE of GOLD
THE VESICA VICTORIAN
A single story contemporary styled house based on the golden ratio Fibonacci Spiral.
A 3-story urbane Victorian style home based on the vesica piscis.
THE HOUSE of GOLD
THE VESICA VICTORIAN
A single story ranch style based on the golden ratio Fibonacci spiral.
A 3-story urbane Victorian style home based on the vesica piscis.