Benilde installation offers a break from deadlines and doomscrolling

Cecil Ravelas’ “pause.” is a space for stillness and reflection.

All of us have been conditioned to keep going: to meet the deadline, submit the requirement, fulfill the task, reply to the email, then move on to the next thing.

Even our downtime has started to feel busy. We doomscroll. We bedrot. We call it resting yet somehow, our minds are still switched on.

So what would it look like to have a space where you don’t have to do anything at all? No tasks. No notifications. No endless scrolling. Just… breathing.

That’s the idea behind pause., an experiential design installation by interior designer Cecil Ravelas at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde.

Set inside the Gallery of the Design + Arts Campus, the installation creates a quiet, enclosed space where visitors can step away from the pace of everyday life. But pause. isn’t simply a place to sit and be still. It is Ravelas’ attempt to explore how design itself can make room for rest, reflection, and recovery.

Origins of pause.

There’s a common idea that places meant for healing have to be grand, secluded, or far removed from everyday life. Ravelas’ work pushes against that notion: sometimes, all a space needs to offer is room to breathe.

The idea first took shape earlier this year at WorldBex, where Ravelas unveiled HINGA, a modular, dome-like sanctuary made from raw, simple materials.

“I have always been interested in how spaces influence how we feel, think and move through the world,” Ravelas said. “I believe spaces carry energy, and they shape our inner state in ways we often do not immediately recognize.”

The response to HINGA eventually led to interest from several institutions, including Benilde. What began as a single structure gradually became pause..

Beyond physical installation

At Benilde, the idea extends beyond the physical installation. pause. will host a series of programs centered on stillness and restoration, including sound baths, meditation, and breathwork, as part of the school’s student well-being efforts.

The opening itself followed that premise. Guests experienced a session on scent and stillness with broadcast journalist and home fragrance entrepreneur Ces Drilon, followed by a sound bath led by mindfulness instructor Lei Sta. Maria and breathwork with certified shamanic minister Malou Araneta. With the school year just beginning, Ravelas said she is curious to see how students will eventually make the space their own.

For Ravelas, pause. is also part of a bigger conversation about designing spaces that support well-being. Her practice draws on light, sound, and materiality, as well as Filipino ideas such as maaliwalas, hinga, and ginhawa—concepts she says the body can register before the mind does.

That philosophy extends to the way she thinks about sustainability. “Part of sustaining the environment is also taking care of ourselves,” Ravelas said. “It doesn’t make sense to have a future world without healthy people living in it.”

Her hope is for that thinking to reach the places where people spend much of their lives: offices, schools, hospitals, hospitality spaces, and homes. She also wants well-being to become part of how designers are trained and how the profession thinks about space.

And what comes next for pause.? Ravelas would rather not decide just yet. “HINGA began as a structure, and then it became pause. organically, because of how people responded to it,” she said. “I would like to keep on listening that way.”

pause. is open to visitors on the 12th floor of the school’s Gallery of the Design + Arts Campus.

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