MVRDV Designs Sustainable Serenity Project
Architecture firm MVRDV is collaborating with the Plum Village community on a new eco-conscious project. The design aims to blend sustainable architecture with a focus on creating an environment of serenity and mindfulness.
- The project encompasses two masterplans for the Upper and Lower Hamlets of the monastery, a new nunnery, four guest houses, and a renovation of the bookshop. The new nunnery is the largest proposed structure, designed to house 76 monastics in a courtyard-style building that includes a library, classrooms, and a meditation hall (zendo). - A primary goal is to better manage the influx of visitors, which can reach up to 800 people for retreats, a demand that has outstripped the monastery's current capacity. To enhance serenity, the masterplan reorganizes vehicle routes to create car-free villages, shifting traffic away from communal areas. - MVRDV's design team engaged in a deep listening process, staying at the monastery since 2023 to immerse themselves in the community's daily routines and spiritual practices, a method Associate Director Sanne van der Burgh said required them to "un-learn" traditional architectural approaches. - Material selection is guided by circular economy principles, prioritizing bio-based and local materials to minimize embodied carbon. The new nunnery will utilize a prefabricated timber frame system with straw insulation, reflecting the community's environmental values. - The architectural lighting strategy in such spiritual spaces often focuses on human-centric principles, using the interplay of light and shadow to foster contemplation and connect with natural circadian rhythms. Design elements like generous verandas and pathways are integrated to support the practice of walking meditation. - MVRDV has a portfolio of achieving high-level sustainability certifications like BREEAM Outstanding, LEED Platinum, and WELL Gold, indicating a deep familiarity with standards that quantify health and well-being in the built environment, including melanopic lighting standards. - The firm's innovation-focused internal team, MVRDV NEXT, develops and utilizes computational tools like CarbonSpace to analyze and reduce the embodied carbon of projects from the earliest design stages, aligning with a lifecycle assessment approach. - This project is a non-profit collaboration, undertaken with the Bordeaux-based co-architect MoonWalkLocal, reflecting the Plum Village community's emphasis on a non-capitalistic model of shared resources and service.
