International Bodhisattva Sangha Sutra Library

A sutra repository on a forested hillside, integrating scripture storage, cataloging, and volunteer living. The design diminishes building mass, embedding it in nature — two volumes joined by bridged corridors form continuity with terrain, airflow, and landscape. Encircling book walls and passive ventilation reduce mechanical reliance, shaping a space for preservation and contemplative experience.
The project originates from the need for scripture storage and cataloging, located at the foot of a hillside along a stream, where natural airflow and high humidity prevail. While archive spaces typically rely on mechanical systems to maintain stable conditions, the design explores how to achieve ventilation and humidity balance through natural means. By guiding airflow, calibrating openings, and adjusting structural configuration, the building maintains climatic stability with minimal mechanical reliance. Responding to the client's emphasis on contemplative practice, the design combines environmental control with bodily experience, extending the archival program into a space of stillness and quiet contemplation.
The design centers on diminishing building mass and embedding it in nature. The program is distributed across two volumes arranged along an axis following the hillside, reducing visual dominance over the landscape. Open space and preserved planting at the front allow the building to interweave with the forest, forming a field of natural coexistence. Openings are horizontally distributed and precisely aligned with scripture shelving, admitting soft daylight while avoiding direct exposure that could damage the texts. This configuration also moderates heat and humidity exchange, maintaining stable archival conditions. Double-height voids and semi-outdoor spaces enhance permeability, allowing greenery to extend into the interior.
Unlike conventional storage spaces driven by efficiency and function, this project redefines the practice of organizing sutras, transforming labor into a bodily spatial experience. A human-centered configuration with scriptures encircling the occupant, combined with double-height voids, openings oriented toward the landscape, and bridge circulation linking mountain vistas, establishes a continuous rhythm between movement and pause. Encircling book walls and a central space create an immersive condition where occupants are enveloped by surrounding scriptures. The architecture also preserves environmental indeterminacy, allowing occupants to develop an internal sense of order through climatic change, forming a contemplative spatial prototype.
Rather than reinforcing religious imagery through form, the design responds to the calm and stability inherent in Buddhist temple space through restrained massing and understated materiality, reducing architectural presence and embedding the building within the forest. Construction traces and material irregularities are preserved, reflecting an understanding of authenticity and the acceptance of imperfection, and allowing the architecture to coexist with time and nature. Discomfort is incorporated into the design through an uncovered bridge and semi-open spaces, exposing occupants to wind, rain, and temperature change during movement and work. These conditions prompt behavioral adjustment in response to climate, establishing a mode of inhabitation rooted in coexisting with the environment.
Building mass is reduced and the program distributed across two independent volumes arranged in response to the terrain, minimizing the visual dominance of any single structure over the landscape and integrating the architectural scale with the surrounding hillside.
A subtractive strategy with systematic reusable formwork reduces material consumption and waste. The structure serves as the finished surface, allowing materials to express their as-built condition and the traces of time, eliminating secondary finishes.
Ventilation and dehumidification rely on a natural pressure-driven system. Solar heat absorbed by the roof drives warm air upward, while low and high openings work in tandem to sustain continuous air exchange, maintaining comfort without mechanical reliance.