We set out to create a platform for the very best of contemporary yoga. We sought an experience that was calm, beautiful and tactile, with just a fragment of luxury.
The space was a crude blockwork shell buried deep below the City Works Depot. Previously a carpark, a single west-facing opening offers the only daylight.
The space is simple in its parts and assembly, but concealing great complexity. It relies on a naturally-lit ‘decompression space’ to mark arrival. Beyond, small bathing rooms line the perimeter, the studio at the core.
That studio is a jewellery box lined in timber and totally enclosed: A temple-like environment, cedar walls washed by a linear light in the ceiling’s wooden grid. It is quiet here.
The material palette is soft. The studio is lined in fine cedar battens – heart & sapwood included: rather than a mute, synthetic lining, the timber accommodates shrinking and expansion as humidity and temperature oscillate, infusing the room with the perfume of its oils. Roasted browns and golden hues make humane this old carpark.
