Yesterday took place the first of many workshops to design and build a new Buddhist centre in Rotterdam. The plan is that the Buddhist community and volunteers will transform a former industrial-printing house into their centre. COFO architects is in charge of the design and will continue to work on the coming months in an open and creative process, whereby the community will develop their own centre following a clear architecture solution.

The evening’s programme started with a meditation session led by Lama Jigme and was followed by an intense design workshop, whereby the community's wishes and ideas were fully explored. A complete inventory of the skills and capacities available within the community was also made. This information will be used to adapt the design and to organise the building tasks later on in the process.

Three more design workshops will take place in the coming months. The participatory process will be continued during the execution phase as intense building sessions.