Design II / Spring 2022
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Freshkills Park, New York City
Professor Michael Young
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The monastery outlines a spatial articulation of ritual; it is totally austere yet modest, at once encompassing everything—light, ambience, pressure—and nothing at all, as it disappears by imitating its environment. This balance holds a space for meditation between ground and sky. Openings folded into the roof and soft depressions imprinted into earth reinterprets the separation of traditional monastic typologies by replacing rigid planimetric walls with sectional compression and expansion. The result is an equilibrium at the intersection of vertical forces and the sweeping horizon. 
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Approaching the building begins by a descent from the surrounding landscape of Freshkills park into a recessed garden containing the circular path for chanting. On the inside, spaces of meditation and rest are informally separated from gathering and dining. Each area captures the sun at different times throughout the day through the size and orientation of skylights, corresponding to the rituals of monks.
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Perimeter panels can be opened to peak over the horizon or closed to focus. A minimal expression of the interior and a reflective pool of the sky simplifies the sensory experience yet allows stimulation to not become lost. A carefully scaled, textured and illuminated space urges one to be acutely aware of every movement, clears the mind for meditation, and forms a sensorial connection between body and world.