Delayed Space:
A Buddhist Campus & Monastery

One of the most significant mode of operations for the Buddhist campus master plan design is precise calculation and establishing temporal dimension. Time is extended and manifested in architectural space. Procession and sequences of events are identified through architecture by layering of space and system of circulation. Layers of space cloistered around three distinctly different courtyard. The most outer layer of space wraps around hard and gently slope landscape of the school courtyard where learning activities take place. 

Sequences of space are delayed and continue to wrap around the second courtyard of a large pool of water filled with lotus surrounding the existing main temple where many religious and cultural rituals take place. Cloistered individual monk cells hover and wrap around the lotus pool. 

Moving up and down while wrapping around creating a field of enclosures, these architectural spaces continue to flow through the third and last courtyard of the cultural center. This soft and undulating landscape characterized as social space is where the Buddhist community of immigrants from Thailand regularly gets together for social and other significant events. 

Spatial rhythm oscillates between outside world and monastic living through the gradient of dense bamboo screens and layers of porous masonry walls. Differing degrees of transparency provide a field of enclosures operating like wrappers that control movement of circulation and create different size rooms of interior and exterior space for large gatherings, learning activities and individual practice of meditation.