Filinvest Alabang taps Japanese architectural firm to design chapel

FILINVEST ALABANG, INC. tapped award-winning Japanese architectural firm Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP Architects to design the Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel in Filinvest City.

The chapel, which is located at the River Park, has a distinctive design inspired by an inverted white Lily — the flower that represents the purity of Mother Mary.

“We made the connection between the kindness and gentleness of Mother Mary to the Lily. Through this concept, we envisioned an architecture that gently embraces people, and when the sunlight reflects on the chapel, the purity of the white Lily is emphasized,” Kohei Omori, the project’s lead architect and co-representative of NAP International, said in a statement.

Mr. Omori also highlighted the chapel’s sustainable features.

“The top portion of the chapel acts like a funnel. Heated air is essentially exhausted to the outside, which will then draw in a cool air inside with the help of the creek nearby,” he said.

Design is something that should affect people emotionally and spiritually, Mr. Omori said.

“Just seeing how people interact with the building and looking at how they spend their time inside the chapel made us realize that we did succeed in allowing this to be part of their daily life, which was one of our goals since beginning this project,” he said.

Francis Gotianun, director of Filinvest Development Corp., said the company always wanted to build “an environment that inspires and enables possibilities.”

“Once everything was built and done, we wanted to finally welcome (the Chapel) to Filinvest grounds so that the community may have another space where they can feel safe, protected, and at peace,” he said.

The Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel is open daily from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Regular masses are scheduled at 5 p.m. on Saturday, and at 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.