Amaravati Buddhist Monastery
- Client: The English Sangha Trust, Steward of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery
- Architect: Various
- Contacts: Oliver Coleman, Jon Roshier
- LPA: Dacorum Borough Council
Amaravati Buddhist Monastery is a phased redevelopment of a Buddhist monastic site of the Thai Forest Tradition. The monastery is a place both for practicing monks and nuns as well as being open to guests and visitors.
Amaravati Buddhist Monastery is located within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).The site covers an area of approximately 8.35 hectares. The site was originally constructed (in the 1930s) as a summer camp for children. With the outbreak of the Second World War, the site was used instead to house children evacuated from London. Following the end of the conflict, the site was used as a school before being closed by the Bedfordshire County Education Authority and sold to The English Sangha Trust (EST) in 1984. The site was subsequently established as a Buddhist Monastery with a resident monastic community.
Rolfe Judd supported the development of a masterplan for the phased redevelopment of the monastic site as well as providing representations for the Local Plan to give the site the prominence of a site allocation. This provided planning certainty over a long redevelopment period owing to the monastery being supported by charitable donations. The central Temple and Cloister buildings provide the spiritual and physical heart for the community with other areas of the monastic site developed around this core.
Planning permissions of the site have included a Nursing Kuti (providing palliative care for monks), reconfiguration and rationalising of site parking and accesses, redevelopment of the nun’s accommodation buildings, replacement of the Stupa (a religious monument) and redevelopment of the site workshops and Sala (the main meeting place for the site). Rolfe Judd are presently acting for the redevelopment of the monk’s area in the latest phase of the redevelopment proposals.
Important principles of the redevelopment are to introduce an architectural style that is both appropriate to the Chilterns but also reflect a Thai Buddhist architectural style. Each phase is also designed to be both unique but complement the site as a whole. Sustainability is also a fundamental, with the Monastery committing to developing the site to Passivhaus standards wherein it is understood that the Sala building may be the largest religious building in the world built to this standard of sustainability.
