Yoga House on Cliff,Portugal

‘Yoga-Vihāra’

Yoga is a practice of well being of mind, body and soul. The practice not only engages oneself with own spirituality but also one’s natural state of being. The existing campus of Va le De Moses Yoga Retreat has a culture of being close to nature where one gets a shot of freshness and calmness. The proposed ‘Yoga House on Cliff’ is envisioned as a center of the campus which was always there in ruins since centuries but has emerged in a new form using the old foundation. The idea of this house is not only a yoga hall but a pavilion having transition of open and closed spaces. The house termed as ‘Yoga-Vihara’ is a yoga school based on monastic principles of worship in Buddhism and Hinduism. The building symbolizes a monastery on a hill with the following principles:
1. Access journey as a symbolic gesture of puting effort to reach the goal or the top at God’s feet.
2. Transition from light to dark and dark to light spaces.
3. Minimilistic structural an spatial order
4. Heirarchy and scale of spaces encourages self-learning rather than teaching
5. Variety in environment to practice workship/Yoga

Both, the individual human body and the larger cosmic body, essentially, are made of five elements – earth, water, fire, air and space. The spatial quality and experience of the building addresses all these elements. The openness in design connects one self to the air with lightness and movement while the water represents fluidity and adaptability of one’s body. The warmth, the space provides to the users symbolizes fire and illuminates oneself. The feel of the earth in the courtyards keeps oneself grounded with the realization of foundation of one’s body and the practice of Yoga. The theatre on the roof top connects one’s mind and body to the sky or the space.