L’intervalle
Diploma project — frequencies translated into architecture
L’intervalle explores a new paradigm of healing. It investigates healing as a holistic spatial experience, questioning how architecture can move beyond functionality to actively support the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of its users.
- Year
- 2025 – 2026
- Level
- Master 2 · Diploma project
- Programme
- Seven-day immersive healing retreat
- Location
- Beit Mery, Lebanon
- Area
- ≈ 3,000 m² on three floors
In a contemporary environment shaped by constant stimulation, noise, and accelerated rhythms, the project proposes a pause. An interval between the outside world and the self.
Healing at L’intervalle is approached not as a single moment, but as a gradual process of disconnecting, slowing down, reconnecting and restoring balance.
We are never separate from our environment. Every element around us shapes how we feel, think, and heal. From people and atmospheres, to lighting, colour, materials, textures, scale, and sounds.
Five brainwaves
The architecture at L’intervalle translates this process into a carefully choreographed sequence of spaces based on the five brainwave states: Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma.
Brainwaves are the brain’s measurable activity, continuously changing according to our state of consciousness. Recorded through EEG, these patterns can be observed across different frequency ranges, each associated with characteristic states such as alertness, relaxation, meditation, sleep and heightened awareness.
L’intervalle takes this scientific data as a design language. Rather than simply representing brainwaves visually, the project asks: what if their characteristics could become spatial?
| Human state | Environment | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physical | Mental | Spiritual | Function | Shapes | Materials | Lighting | Sounds | |
| Delta0.5–4 Hz | sleeping | unconscious | restorative | deep sleep | cocooned, enclosed, protective | dense: cork-clay, rammed earth, stone | infrared only | pulses through vibro-acoustic surfaces |
| Theta4–8 Hz | still | imaginative | intuitive | daydream, prayer, hypnosis | fluid, organic, boundless, amorphous | ethereal & seamless: resin / acrylic, frosted glass, microcement | sunset sky: indirect, dimmed, diffused light in warm tones | binaural beats, soft drones, nature sounds, isochronic tones |
| Alpha8–13 Hz | relaxed | calm | grounded | observing & sitting in nature, breathwork, reading, drawing | symmetrical, rounded, flowing, balanced, rhythmic, enveloping | natural & textured: wood, lime plaster, wool, microcement, matte terrazzo | soft, diffused, indirect warm white; abundant daylight; rhythmic light and shadow play | leaves rustling, water flowing, soft piano, wind chimes, ambient harmonies |
| Beta13–30 Hz | active | focused | aware | socializing, talking, thinking, concentrating, analyzing, working, decision-making | angular, linear, geometric, structured, directional, organized | precise & reflective: glossy finishes, aluminum, glass, stainless steel, polished concrete, white surfaces | bright, clear white, focused, directional; natural daylight, high visual clarity | conversation and communication sounds, dialogues, up-beat music |
| Gamma30–100 Hz | energized | illuminated | transcendent | immersive sound healing, peak music experiences, being in awe, deep human connection & empathy | unified, circular, concentric, harmonic, holistic, expansive, radiating, spherical | resonant & vibrant: bronze, dichroic or prismatic glass, white stone, translucent illuminated panels | layered, glowing, radiant, dynamic, volumetric; directional from above; immersive, oculus, iridescent | singing bowls, layered harmonic drones, human vocal harmonies, long reverberating strings and piano harmonies |
Frequency, rhythm, intensity, and state are all translated into shapes, materials, lighting, sounds, scale, and function, turning scientific research into an architectural experience.
Science becomes the input, and architecture becomes the translation.
The seven-day journey
The experience unfolds over seven days, beginning each day in Beta: the state associated with our active, focused waking life, and progressively moving through Alpha, Theta, and finally Delta, allowing the body and mind to gradually slow down rather than forcing relaxation.
This cycle is repeated for six days, while mindful eating and drinking become part of the daily rhythm. And it is only on the seventh day that Gamma is introduced, as the culmination of the journey.
A peak of awareness, connection, transcendence and alignment.
The location
This project is located in Beit Mery, Lebanon. I chose an unbuilt architecture, conceived by a third-year architecture student at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA). Initially meant to be an autism centre, it sits in a quiet and natural landscape, distant from traffic, noise and overstimulation.
I chose an unbuilt architecture not to avoid constraints, but to have the freedom to fully explore my vision. To test all possibilities.
These pictures show the project before my own intervention, completely buried in the landscape of Beit Mery. The architecture has three floors, with a total indoor area of approximately 3,000 m².
Level −2 · arrival
The retreat is accessed from Level −2, through the outdoor staircase highlighted in blue.
The arrival leads into the “Bury Your Old Self” space, a transitional space where visitors change into retreat clothing and leave behind their personal belongings, including phones, money, clothes, jewelry, laptops and shoes. Each person places everything inside their own box, which is then buried outside, beneath the ground.
This transition is an important milestone. It marks us letting go of all of our old habits, our old selves, and welcoming a new experience, learning a new way of living.
Level −2 · Beta frequency
We begin our experience on Day 01 with Beta. This frequency represents our active, focused waking state, translated into energetic spaces of angular and triangular geometries, bright materials and changing levels, that stimulate awareness, attentiveness and movement.
The conversation pit anchors the space, encouraging interaction, social connection and work, while the geometry, textures, and sensory elements keep the body engaged, focused and active.
The Beta space also serves as a daily meeting point, where health coaches introduce visitors each morning to a new aspect of brainwaves, healing, and the philosophy behind L’intervalle.
The knowledge is intended to extend beyond the retreat itself, giving visitors an understanding of their own mind and environments that they can carry into everyday life long after the seven-day journey ends.
Level −2 · Alpha frequency
Next comes Alpha. Alpha is expressed through soft, rounded and symmetrical spaces, positioned directly beneath an open ceiling that visually, and physically, connects all three levels with nature.
On this floor specifically, visitors are invited to experience Alpha by sitting together by the water and observing its ripples formed naturally by rainwater, allowing the movement of water to become a quiet sensory focus that encourages calmness and grounding.
At L’intervalle, nature is never controlled or reproduced. It is only invited in. The water ripples exist only when rain creates them. The space lives with nature. It adapts to it.
The architecture changes with the weather; experiences vary with the seasons. With no rain, the space simply receives daylight, wind, and whatever the natural environment offers.
Level −1
On this floor, visitors are all invited to the breathwork mezzanine, highlighted in green, to experience the Alpha frequency together.
This breathwork session is guided by health coaches and practitioners. It consists of repeated breathing exercises, where we inhale, hold our breaths, and exhale, to relieve tension and stress from our bodies. This experience happens under that same opening that connects the three floors to nature.
Level −1 · Alpha frequency
Through breathwork, visitors begin to slow their breathing and settle their attention, helping reduce physiological arousal and bringing the body toward a deeper state of relaxation.
In the following days, Alpha states could also be encouraged through simple, absorbing activities such as drawing, reading, painting, kneading clay, cooking, listening to music, or observing the gentle flicker of fire and candlelight.
Alpha is about moments that quiet the mind while keeping the senses engaged.
As the sun begins to set, the changing colours and the decreased intensity of daylight become a natural cue to continue the descent inward. The experience gradually moves toward Theta, a slower brainwave associated with extreme relaxation, meditation, imagination, and the threshold between wakefulness and sleep.
The body slows with the day, and the mind follows.
Level −1 · Theta frequency
We access Theta whenever the colours of the sky start to change and the sun begins to set. Here, we all sit still or lie down, inviting the night, while observing the sky. It is in this frequency that we are in our most calm and imaginative states.
The space is shaped through fluid, continuous forms rather than defined curves, circles and geometric figures, allowing surfaces and ceilings to flow into one another, without sharp edges or clearly readable boundaries.
As the eye loses focus on where one surface ends and another begins, the limits of the room become almost imperceptible, creating a sense of boundlessness: a space that feels larger than its own physical dimensions, and allows the imagination to extend beyond the architecture, reaching toward the horizon.
The visitors are encouraged to recline, remain still, lie down, and let their minds wander. This process allows the ambiguity of the space to become a canvas for imagination. This is where the subconscious opens, and where held emotions get released.
As daylight gradually disappears and the space falls into darkness, the experience reaches its natural conclusion: Theta gives way to the last frequency, Delta. It is time to sleep.
Level −2 · Delta frequency
After Theta, the visitors return directly to level −2, the lowest level of the retreat, through a staircase located within the Theta space itself. This direct connection eliminates unnecessary circulation and distractions, allowing the transition into sleep to remain uninterrupted.
The Delta chambers are individual bedrooms embedded within the hillside, conceived without windows, to minimize external stimulation and create an environment dedicated entirely to deep rest. The only light allowed in the Delta chambers is infrared light.
The beds replace conventional mattresses with low-frequency vibrating surfaces, producing vibrations below the hearing range that are intended to be perceived through the bones, fascia, and skin tissue rather than the ears.
The full night of sleep in Delta is designed to support the transition into deep, restorative sleep, the final stage of the nightly healing cycle. It is where profound rest, recovery and the body’s natural regenerative processes can take place.
Retreat timeline
After spending the night in the Delta chambers, the first day is officially over. This process is repeated consecutively over the course of six days out of seven, repeating these four frequencies:
Starting from:
- Beta’s awareness
- Alpha’s grounding
- Theta’s daydreaming
- Delta’s deep sleep
Day 7:Gamma
This leaves Gamma, the ultimate frequency and culmination of the retreat’s experience, for the seventh day only. It allows the visitors to be fully prepared for that last step, the most important part of the healing journey, and to have had enough time to detach from their old lifestyles and build a healthier routine beforehand.
Ground floor · Gamma frequency
After six days of moving through Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta, the visitors reach Gamma on Day 07, on the highest floor of the retreat. Gamma is associated with a heightened awareness, integration, alignment, and the simultaneous processing of information across the brain.
Unlike the preceding experiences, Gamma is collective. Visitors gather together in a shared immersive space where light, sound, vibration and the surrounding landscape converge into one sensory experience.
The architecture dissolves the boundaries between self, others and nature, creating a final moment of connection and alignment before returning to the outside world.
The Gamma space is conceived as a continuous, enveloping environment, built around concentric circular forms that gather visitors toward a shared centre. The circular ceiling and radial opening above bring the sky and surrounding landscape into the space, creating a direct connection between the collective experience and nature.
Around this central space, the individual singing bowls form a rhythmic arrangement, reinforcing the sense of unity, continuity, and interconnectedness that defines the final stage of the journey.
This last experience is centred around resonance. Visitors stand within these individual singing bowls, while a health practitioner strikes each bowl, allowing its vibrations to travel throughout the entire body, creating a shared field of vibration as individual frequencies overlap and resonate with one another.
For the first time in the journey, there is nothing left to quiet: here, the mind, the body, the space, and the people around you are all resonating as one.
L’intervalle was never about escaping the world, but about how to exist within it again: to listen to our bodies, follow the rhythm of nature, and notice the quiet ways a space can change us. In the end, healing is not a destination hidden somewhere inside the architecture; it is the moment we become present enough to feel that we were always a part of it.
