Bhutan Elder Sangha Sanctuary
Bhutan Elder Sangha Sanctuary
Punaka, Bhutan
The Bhutan Elder Sangha Sanctuary is a Buddhist sanctuary, residential compound, and healthcare facility in rural Bhutan. A collaboration between Tsao & McKown Architects, Bhutan’s Royal Monastic Body, and Dr. Mary Ann Tsao of the Tsao Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving the aging experience and to implementing innovative community-based healthcare, our goal was to create a residential compound and healthcare facility which would allow elder monks to age in place within a vibrant, intergenerational community. Our team worked closely with local leaders, monks, and government agencies to create and refine the framework for a community that would become a vital hub for Buddhist life and a training center for medical and spiritual practice.
The development clusters living, social, and spiritual zones in a densified compound within a 73-acre wooded campus. This seemingly urban arrangement of mixed-use buildings both preserves and contemporizes rural ways of life for this Buddhist community, which now benefits from more opportunities for daily interaction between elder monks and their younger peers.
The Sanctuary includes a community building comprising a library, an infirmary, and facilities for dining and meeting; a building to house staff; and eight houses designed to create a series of courtyard-like spaces. Each house consists of a communal living room and kitchen area as well as eight bedrooms. Entry porticos invite natural light and the landscape into the buildings. This project is the first in Bhutan to incorporate ADA-design standards in a multi-unit residence.
Within each bedroom, low beds are designed to double as meditation platforms; and doors are configured so that food can be delivered during periods of solitary retreat without interrupting silent prayer.
While contemporary concerns for light quality, environmental sustainability, and improved conveniences influenced our design’s forms and arrangements, we strove to ensure that our design respects the traditional, distinctive, and strict architectural vocabulary cherished by the Bhutanese, even as we introduced new innovations. Accordingly, the Bhutan Elder Sangha Sanctuary adheres to the Bhutanese government’s mandate that traditional architecture and construction methods remain in place as the country opens to foreign development. One example of our design combining traditional Bhutanese architectural elements with respectful innovations is our decision to clad traditional raised roofs, that typically provide ventilation and shading, with translucent panels to introduce abundant natural light into the interiors.
The buildings are intended to serve as prototypes that are adaptable, easily replicable across Bhutan, and environmentally and culturally appropriate. Working with His Majesty, the King of Bhutan and His Holiness Jhe Khenpo, the head of the Monk Body, we developed the master plan and feasibility study, and helped to shape the capital campaign that was essential to realizing this project.
(I don’t understand - did T&M design the buildings of this project? Or did they only master plan the project and conduct the feasibility study?)
Upon visiting the fully-completed project in summer 2023, Zack was delighted to see monks living there contentedly: “I felt a great sense of relief, because we were, after all, working within a cultural context which we could not possibly fully understand, despite our best efforts over several years of investigations and engagement with the community”.
We love working in Bhutan, and on the heels of this project we were thrilled to be asked to work with the Bhutan Foundation and Bhutan's governing agencies on the restoration and repurposing of one of the country's most historically important buildings: the Wangduechhoeling Palace.
