Architecture often finds its essence not in the grand or the monumental but in spaces that inspire belonging, community, and harmony with their context.
Project Name: Forest of Peace Spaces of Belonging
Studio Name: raasa architects
Project location: Nardipur, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
Design year: 2022
Completion year: 2024
Built area: 16,380 Sq. Foot
Site area: 55,485 Sq. Foot
Photography: The Space Tracing Company
The 16,000 sqft ashram at Nardipur, near Adalaj village in Gandhinagar, embodies this philosophy by weaving the natural environment, cultural memory, and architectural forms into a seamless experience for its visitors. Designed with reverence for its history and environment, the ashram evolves as a meditative retreat, where the landscape and built forms engage in a quiet dialogue.
The site has a profound historical and spiritual resonance. Guru Maharaj performed various ritual offerings at this location, gradually drawing disciples and pilgrims from surrounding villages. Over time, this place transformed into a living ashram that provides lodging and food for visitors. This evolution from a sacred ritual site to a community hub underpins the ashram’s design, which retains and enhances the essence of its origins.
The entry is marked by a buffer zone that acts as a pause point, gently transitioning visitors inward. The entry pathway is the ashram’s first architectural gesture, retaining the existing bougainvillea canopy that arches over the path. This natural feature, preserved and celebrated, creates an immersive journey that evokes a sense of serenity and anticipation. It leads visitors toward the prayer hall, revealing glimpses of the ashram’s architecture while maintaining an intimate connection with the surrounding nature. The lush landscape—dotted with chikoo trees, orange, sitafal and coconut trees as well, and an ecosystem of birds and bees—is not just incidental but integral, safeguarded as a key design principle. The ashram respects this ecosystem, ensuring no greens were removed and that the site’s inherent biodiversity thrives.
The ashram is thoughtfully planned with a sequence of primary spaces, including the community hall, lodging rooms, dining area, and the sacred fireplace, all culminating in a multipurpose open ground. This arrangement encourages a natural flow, motivating interaction, collectivity, and a seamless connection between built spaces and the expansive outdoors.
The prayer hall stands as the spiritual heart of the ashram, embodying a balance of light, form, and function. Its design draws inspiration from a symmetrical 9×9 grid, reflecting a language that resonates with the principles of Vastu Shastra, interpreted architecturally rather than religiously. The hall is oriented northeast, allowing soft, filtered light to animate the space while maintaining a contemplative atmosphere. Not all arches are left open; this selective approach manipulates light, creating an interplay of shadows that adds depth and subtlety to the design.
The RCC arches, constructed using the ferma module, are structurally incorporated and slightly projected to protect glass from rain and dirt and it inevitably also offers shaded niches for birds, enriching the structure’s relationship with nature. Chamfered window edges soften the visual impact, creating thinner windows within, and enhance natural ventilation. Above, arch windows encircle the hall by becoming skylight, ensuring air circulation and preventing the heightened volume from becoming a thermal trap, while the façade slit highlights the entry point, reinforcing a sense of sacred arrival.
The hall’s subtle and creamy spatial and visual form contrasts with an symbolic structure resembling a flame, rendered in red. It is the fireplace where symbolism is woven into every aspect, from the placement of a small waterbody representing the element of water to the upward-reaching forms symbolizing air. The sacred fireplace, the metaphysical energy core of the ashram, ties these elements together, grounding the space in tradition and spirituality. This abstract representation of fire, pointing skyward, connects to the sacred act of hawans once performed here. The fireplace that stands out in its palatte and striking form, considered as the spiritual energy center of the ashram, embodies the five elements—earth, fire, water, air, and space—through its visual character, offering a profound connection to both physical and metaphysical realms.
