hospitalitystyle.com

(September 2010) posted on Wed Sep 15, 2010 EDT

Peter Rose + Partners’ award-winning annex breathes new life into the look and layout of North America’s largest yoga retreat.

By Mary Scoviak

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For nearly 30 years, people from all over the world have come to Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Massachusetts' Berkshire Mountains to hone their skills for “optimal living.” But while on-staff and guest-star teachers were helping clients realize a better future with rejuvenating programs for mind, body and spirit, this former Jesuit seminary dating from 1957 was living in the past. “The building was poorly laid out for Kripalu's programs and operations. Its structure and systems required triage-like care on a daily basis,” says Peter Rose, AIA, senior principal with architect Peter Rose + Partners (Cambridge, Mass.). Add to that poor air quality and the result was, in his words, “uncomfortable and unappealing for clients.”

Commissioned to develop a new master plan for the center, Rose and his team had to find a balance between Kripalu's need for a flexible, modern addition that could accommodate ambitious growth plans and its mandate for architecture, design and site planning that would be environmentally and socially responsible. It was also clear that the monastic aesthetic inherited by Kripalu when it bought the property in 1983 looked far too literal.

“Kripalu's housing needs are modest and straightforward, but the architecture of the extension, like yoga itself, had to be full of layers of complexity that gently improved the structure's performance,” says Rose. “Light, air, using minimal means to shape a calm, healing environment—it was all about fulfilling those intangible requirements.”

Working with that mantra, the firm designed a $15 million, 34,000-square-foot eco-friendly annex that includes both new public spaces and a diverse menu of 80 additional guest rooms. A glazed passage with a planted roof and sunny southern exposure connects the original center with the new six-story tower. Natural light and views of the surrounding 300-acre forest frame the transition space, fusing indoors and outdoors. But, as a nod to practicality, the enclosed corridor allows guests to move easily through the complex in stocking feet. There's also an entrance from the outside that guides arriving clients under a sheltering canopy to the self-confessed “modest lobby,” as Rose describes it.

An interplay of modern and natural materials provides continuity between the architecture and interiors. The lobby takes its cue from the concrete exterior but accents it with shots of color and strategic lighting. Slatted cypress used to integrate the manmade building materials with the woods outside is reiterated in the wood accents that frame an unpretentious seating area in the public space.

Not surprisingly, it's the 2,400-sq.ft. yoga space, not the entry, that's grand. Glazing along opposing sides of the room maximizes natural light and optimizes views of the dense foliage of the surroundings. Strategic lighting shines off the wood floor.

In the yoga room and the other areas of the annex, both light and materials are meant to blend with the setting, rather than compete with it. For example, the cypress cladding will weather to a natural gray to make it recede into the forest when viewed from the distance. Cypress sun screens slide in front of the guest room windows. They can be moved by hand to temper heat gain, but that movement also creates a play of shadow and light within the room. Another plus: Guests can enjoy the scent of cypress as they relax or drift off to sleep.

Natural ventilation, hydronic radiant heating and cooling, and an extremely compact building design (the volume is 30 percent smaller than typical construction) all provide for energy savings of nearly half when compared to conventional construction. The combination of creative concept and eco-friendly execution earned the project an American Institute of Architects' National Housing Award in the category of Specialized Housing.

“Using simple, robust materials integrated into a streamlined design, the building does its work with efficiency and a quiet, lasting beauty, then slips out of the way to give a landscape center stage,” says Rose. A similar ethic imbues the entire master plan. Proposed changes include renovations to existing campus buildings, landscape improvements and new buildings to increase capacity, all of which, Rose says, will combine to create “a serene, ecologically sensitive environment and a model of environmental responsibility.”