‘within garden walls
rows of flowers all arranged
the emptiness filled’ - eric de leeuw
In 1996, the International Zen Centre Noorder Poort was established as a Zen training center of the International Zen Institute, in the tradition of Zen Master Gesshin Prabhasa Dharma. Today, the centre is led by her successor, the Dutch Zen master Jiun Hogen Roshi. It consists of a small core of permanent residents, surrounded by a network of volunteers.
The Zen centre is located on a former farm, set on nearly ten hectares of land in the province of Drenthe, surrounded by open fields. Although it forms part of the strip development of the village Wapserveen, the farm lies set back several hundred meters from the main road. The site includes many walking paths, used for walking meditation. The centre features guest accommodations, a kitchen with dining hall, and a zazen hall (meditation space). The original house adjacent to the farm is currently used as an office and also serves as the official residence.
The growth of the Zen centre made it necessary to develop a long-term masterplan with space for a new meditation hall and an official residence for the Zen master. This allows the existing house to be used entirely as office space, creating a clear separation between private and communal life. In this master plan, the site of the current meditation hall will be repurposed to add more guest accommodations.
The new official residence consists of two wings: a living wing to the west, and a sleeping wing to the north. The living spaces have higher ceilings than the sleeping quarters. The house is built in masonry, then rendered with cement without distinguishing between inside and outside. Materials are deliberately minimal and restrained: a concrete floor, and a grey-green slatted ceiling among them.
Because the original farm building lies set back on the property, the new residence was positioned, in the zoning plan, in front of the farm's building line. According to this plan, the new house, as an ‘outbuilding’, had to remain subordinate to the main building, the farm. Building in front of the main building line is unusual, as it could create a hierarchical conflict between the farm and the new residence.
To resolve this, we made a key design decision: we treated the entire designated area in front of the farm’s building line as a ‘garden’. The new official residence thus becomes part of this garden. The house as a garden, and the walled garden as a house.
w/ daad architecten
