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Digital painting of a large mosque with a blue dome and minarets overlooking a lake with sailboats and a distant city skyline.

Digital painting of a large mosque with a blue dome and minarets overlooking a lake with sailboats and a distant city skyline.

Welcome to the future of mosques. Welcome to the Jaber Oakville Mosque. In this new day and age, there comes a desire to enhance the current day Islam places of worship. So, with this redesigned prayer space comes technological advancements, environmental awareness, and increased inclusivity, making all feel welcome within the mosque. Located a quick five-minute walk away from Appleby College on the beautiful shores of Lake Ontario, this prayer space was designed with integration into the community in mind. After numerous interviews with Muslim Appleby staff and students, it seemed that there were two issues with the current-day mosques in the GTA. Not only are they built far away, but they are always in more industrialized areas of the city and never incorporated within the neighbourhood. Having this closer option benefits any boarders who wish to pray here, students of the World Religions classes, and everyone nearby. Before entering, a large, blue dome will be seen on the roof of the building. The dome is not only a prominent piece of architecture throughout the Middle East, but it also has a hidden meaning behind it. The dome on top of the mosque symbolizes the vault of heaven in some traditions (Huda, 2019). However, different from most domes, its blue colour is not a visual choice, but rather a vital part of the prayer space as it is made up entirely of solar panels. Instead of relying on dirty energy forms, the building harnesses energy from the sun from all angles Ver más