The clients’ brief was simple, ‘some guest rooms and a garden with 24 different types of trees (24 because it represents the 24 messengers or preachers of Jainism who have achieved the highest state of human conscious and Moksha) and together it should form what they referred to as a ‘Wisdom Park’.
The site is a beautiful contoured tapering land facing a 10th or 11th century stepped lake. The position of the lake in the context is very precise as it is situated in the lowest part between the gentle valley formed by hill formations running east to west.
The temple complex itself is situated amidst dense forested condition with the farmlands and the temple being the only signs of any settlement.
Our response was to the tapering site was to offer a inhabitable perimeter colonnade with both public and private programs. The Private zones are formed by repeating the courtyard rooms 12 times in each wing with a courtyard – a buffer zone connecting the public programs with staircase- after 6 rooms. The same configuration is duplicated and aligned to the northern edge of the site.
The voids left between the hilly ground and the linear organization of the courtyard rooms form the public zones of the project -almost as a negotiation between the logic of organization its residue formed as a response to the context.
If the rooms are above the public room then they have a single height courtyard with an open bathroom, a stepped bath tub and a tree. If it is below the public program then it has a double height courtyard that creates adjacent terraces for the public zone.
the building is completed by a entrance lobby on the East and a large open pavilion or Veranda on the West – framing the lake.
The building is conceived to be made of very basic and austere construction system of exposed concrete frame structure with exposed brick inlay – sometimes solid and sometimes forming a simple screen.
The courtyard accommodates the garden with 24 trees.
room for architecture 