​​​​​Caliz Linterna de Paz: Viviente Memorial, 2025

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Living Memorial Sanctuary and Chapel for Maya Communities and Guatemalan Refugees: 

Hydro-Regenerative Biocultural Vessel Architecture for Cultural Healing and Reconciliation.

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Lago Petén Itza, Petén, Guatemala, Central America.

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​​​Pioneering Indigenous Architectural Typologies

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Caliz Linterna de Paz: Viviente Memorial is a visionary design and research initiative by Alumbra that advances Indigenous architectural typologies for our time. Rooted in Maya–Christian cosmology, Caliz seeks an authentic design language that rises from cultural essence, land-based knowledge and spiritual continuity, rather than from inherited Western framings. Its form embodies the dual axes of the World Tree and the Cross, becoming a living, hydro-regenerative vessel where reconciliation, healing and ecological renewal unfold together.

Caliz demonstrates how a sacred public building can function as a biocultural organism—cleaning water, restoring soils, regenerating forests, sequestering carbon and supporting community livelihood. This foundational research expands global architectural discourse by showing how architecture can awaken new pathways for planetary care: where ceremony, ecology, and design converge, and where culture and environment are restored as one living system.

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Revolutionary Memorial Paradigm: Active Sanctuary for the Living

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Located at the shores of Lago Petén Itzá, Petén, Guatemala, this 80m × 80m inverted pyramidal structure rising 35m from locally-grown bamboo and certified teak transforms Christ's chalice into living architecture that honors displaced Maya peoples, refugees, and disappeared peoples. The memorial's revolutionary premise completely reimagines commemorative architecture—not as passive remembrance of the dead, but as living vessel actively serving those who continue to suffer and continue to look for peace—integrating holistic circular design principles that unite stormwater filtration and sewer treatment systems with social balance, environmental regeneration, economic empowerment, and spiritual sanctuary while continuing the work of the cross through architectural ministry.

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Hydro-Regenerative Vessel Architecture: Bi-Directional Water Treatment Ecosystem

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The project pioneers hydro-regenerative vessel architecture: a bi-directional water treatment system where the elevated archipelago (Stage 1: starting base includes: 58-hectare site with 15,000-20,000m² wetland ecosystem at +0.5m to +1.5m above lake level) creates sanctuary of clean water for food production—fish, vegetables, medicinal plants—within Guatemala's polluted Lake Petén Itzá, while simultaneously treating contaminated lake water through expanded protective corridors that demonstrate restoration possibility. Gravity-powered circulation through a 5-meter cascade system provides zero-energy water purification and oxygenation, supporting aquaculture feeding 50-100 families monthly and vegetable gardens serving 30-60 families weekly, proving that sacred architecture can simultaneously nourish body and spirit.

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Redemptive Embodiment: Woven Construction as Resurrection and Reconciliation

Sacred Strata: Site as Carrier of Memory

Functioning as vessel of redemption, the architecture pioneers contemporary Maya typology through woven bamboo construction inspired by backstrap loom techniques—where community members install 300×300mm teak memorial blocks engraved with names of loved ones, transforming construction into collective healing ritual. Site selection operated through multi-layered criteria: its archaeological significance as witness to final Maya-Spanish battles establishes historical resonance, while geological strata hold 3,000 years of continuous Maya occupation alongside 500 years of colonial violence. Planting Caliz here becomes offering in search of peace, positioning architectural intervention as act of respect and reconciliation with place itself.

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Timber as Cruciform: Material Redemption and Theological Ecology

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Material selection transcends renewable resource metrics and carbon assessments, operating simultaneously within technical performance requirements and spiritual significance of sacrifice and redemption. The structural timber—certified teak and laminated bamboo from Guatemala's bioregion—carries layered significance: forestry protocols ensure regenerative harvest cycles, while theologically the cut logs reference Christ's crucifixion. Through architectural intention, these materials reconcile into living Chalice body serving continuous purpose, becoming contemporary expression of the World Tree that synthesizes Maya axis mundi with universal Tree of Life symbolism—signifying death transformed into life in service, what was taken from earth returns as shelter and sustenance to serve and live on.

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Weaving as Prayer: Indigenous Construction Methodology

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The woven construction method embodies reconciliation philosophy at multiple scales: structurally, individual members find strength through connection; culturally, the methodology expresses indigeneity through built form; pedagogically, modular systems enable community-led construction with technical training; spiritually, construction becomes prayer rather than mere assembly.

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Waters of Memory: Healing the Heart of the Lake

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Lago Petén Itzá's waters carry millennia of accumulated cultural practices and colonial histories. Indigenous cosmology recognizes the lake as possessing memory and spirit. Caliz functions as prayer for healing these waters through unified action: the open chalice form receives rainwater from sky, purifies water through earth and gravity-powered cascade and wetland filtration and returns blessing to community: as the water becomes wine, where the weight of grief transforms into seeds of hope, and where architecture transcends object to become love as action— return blessing through provision of clean water, nourishment, and sanctuary— architecture transcends object to become continuous service following Christ's sacrifice through daily provision for those seeking reconciliation and peace while living in poverty and displacement.

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Beyond Quantification: Materials as Living Bodies with History

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This methodology refuses reductionist frameworks where materials are selected solely for measurable environmental performance. Instead, materials are chosen for capacity to hold memory, carry cultural meaning, participate in cycles of death and rebirth, and serve as connective tissue between past trauma and future healing. This establishes expanded evaluation criteria for sustainable design: not abandoning technical metrics, but encompassing bio-cultural regeneration, intergenerational knowledge transfer, spiritual reconciliation, and adaptive capacity building within communities.

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Evolutionary Design as Interconnected Organism: Beyond Conventional Sustainability Metrics

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Caliz is more than a building interwoven from an archipelago to serve as a body of purpose. Architecture cannot achieve this alone; it must evolve to serve as one with its entire environment in body and in purpose. Caliz is the archipelago and a chalice as one—a living vessel answering to the urgent realities faced not only by indigenous Maya communities, but also by indigenous communities around the world who continue to endure systemic marginalization, economic exploitation, cultural erasure, inadequate access to basic necessities, and the unresolved trauma of genocide, displacement, and disappearance that persist from wars into the present day. Yet Alumbra argues these fundamental imbalances are symptomatic of a larger wound in life we all face on Earth today—wounds arising from consequential lives shaped by war that mark each of us whether from East or West, poverty and homelessness, mental illness, the disappearance of fresh water and air, poverty of happiness and joy, poverty in spiritual awareness and self-awareness and love. "We can no longer afford to see ourselves in isolation, to view our own poverty as a separate crisis. This understanding demands a re-examination of global sustainability principles themselves: measuring beyond data alone, recognizing our call to look deeper into the purpose of what design might become when we accept its purpose as an organism within an evolving living world which requires us to grow and become with it."

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Summary: Wholistic Evolutionary Design- Reframing Circular Sustainability Through Bio-Cultural Integration

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Caliz demonstrates what Alumbra terms evolutionary design—sustainability that transcends closed-loop material flows to encompass bio-cultural regeneration across temporal, spiritual, and ecological dimensions. This methodology refuses conventional separations between environmental and cultural crisis, technical performance and sacred purpose, quantifiable metrics and embodied memory.

Community participation integrates throughout every phase: design conception rooted in indigenous cosmological principles and site memory; construction where memorial block installation becomes collective healing ritual and reskilling opportunity; long-term stewardship where visitors transform into carers who maintain hydro-regenerative systems, harvest aquaculture feeding 50-100 families monthly, and tend wetland ecosystems. This participatory framework builds adaptive capacity through distributed knowledge, spiritual connection to place, and economic empowerment—establishing resilience as cultural continuity rather than engineered redundancy alone.

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Material selection operates within expanded lifecycle thinking: certified teak and bamboo chosen simultaneously for regenerative forestry protocols AND capacity to carry theological meaning, embodied memory, and cultural expression through woven indigenous construction methodologies. The bi-directional water treatment system demonstrates that sacred architecture can provide zero-energy purification while supporting food sovereignty for dozens of families weekly—proving environmental restoration and spiritual reconciliation are inseparable.

This approach establishes new evaluation frameworks for sustainable design: carbon sequestration operates as memorial practice; water purification serves as liturgical participation; food production embodies spiritual nourishment; construction becomes intergenerational knowledge transfer. Caliz functions as living pedagogical infrastructure—teaching through direct participation in bio-cultural systems that adapt and evolve with changing conditions, recognizing design as organism within an evolving world that requires us to grow-care and love.

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Recognition & Project Data

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​German Design Award 2026 – DISTINCTION (Excellent Architecture: Conceptual Architecture and Circular Design categories)

Featured in the German Design Awards Gallery celebrating outstanding design achievements that shape our world and set new standards across disciplines.

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Project Status: Stage 1: Conceptual Visionary Design & Research (Unbuilt)
Year: 2025

Architect: Flor de Maria Alumbra

Technical Production of Architectural designs, concepts, briefs, programs, renders and architectural drawings both manual and digital: Flor de Maria Alumbra

​Production Note: Flor de Maria Alumbra DOES NOT use AI systems in the process of deriving and developing of architectural designs, conceptual briefs and production of any of her architectural drawings, sketches, architectural models, renders and presentation of her architectural artworks.

Photographs credit: Unless noted all photographs of people included in Alumbra's architectural presentations have been taken by Flor de Maria Alumbra during her travels.

Typology: Living Memorial | Hydro-Regenerative Vessel Architecture | Indigenous Sacred Architecture
Scale: 58 hectares total site | 6,400m² building footprint | 5 levels
Materials: Locally-sourced laminated bamboo (1,100-1,350m³), certified teak timber (500-650m³), plant-dyed natural textiles
Base starting target for Carbon Impact: 4,100-4,900 tonnes CO₂ reduction over 50-year lifecycle
Innovation: Pioneering bi-directional water treatment protecting clean food-producing ecosystem from polluted lake while demonstrating restoration methodology; gravity-powered circulation eliminating mechanical energy; woven indigenous construction at monumental scale; zero-plastic sacred architecture; community-built memorial integrating healing through construction participation.

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​Next step - Research Target: EXCEPTIONAL (15,000-30,000 tonnes CO₂ / <50 years)

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Links:​

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German Design Award: Caliz Linterna de Paz: Viviente Memorial

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German Design Award: Caliz Linterna de Paz: Viviente Memorial