Louis Fisher Arrived, Home is a Zen Buddhist mindfulness and retreat center in the Catskills. The project reimagines the monastery’s architecture and its relationship with the landscape, local ecologies, and the practices of the Plum Village tradition itself.
Just as Thich Nhat Hanh told his practitioners to “go like a river”, the organization of structures and program on the site follow the topography, and juxtapose logical arrangements with sinuous walking meditation pathways.
The circulation throughout the site employs Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s “3 doors of liberation” – emptiness, signlesness, and aimlessness.
The primary structure chosen for design articulation is the reception hall and library – the first landing for retreatants, and the economic anchor of the monastery.
The architecture synthesizes Zen Buddhist architectural practices with contextual typologies of Catskills cottages.
