Master-planning and architectural firm Hart Howerton is known for creating communities and hospitality spaces designed to encourage well-being and healthy living. This idea is celebrated at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California’s scenic Bay Area.
Spirit Rock is surrounded by over 400 acres of oak forests in the secluded hills of West Marin County, CA, about 50 miles north of San Francisco. Guests revel in the natural setting, hiking along creeks, hilltop ridges and redwood trees. Wildlife finds sanctuary here too, so it’s not unusual to see deer, turkeys, hawks, and the occasional bobcat or coyote.
The design of a newly completed Community Meditation Hall was guided by Spirit Rock’s essential principal of living mindfully in a tranquil environment. “Our goal in designing the meditation hall was to ultimately create a space that fuses Eastern and Western architecture in the language of the building, and to ensure that guests always feel intimately connected to the landscape,” says Hart Howerton design principal Tim Slattery. “The eight-sided space references the Eightfold Path, a Buddhist teaching that guides the way to spiritual enlightenment and allows multiple points of view to frame the natural setting beyond.”
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