25 University Ave, Newark, New Jersey, U.S, 07102
By the year 2325, rising seas will have transformed Newark into a subtropical estuary. The once-toxic plot before Broad Street Station will become a delicate peninsula, encircled by tidal flows and thick humidity. Here, the Anagata Foundation Center for Contemplative Resilience will emerge —a sanctuary designed to move, breathe, and adapt, honoring cultural memory while fostering resilience.
Inspired by flood-resistant precedents like the Bundanon Art Museum and Flood Plain House, the Center for Contemplative Resilience embraces aqueous rhythms. Housing, food systems, and public spaces are organized around seasonal flooding, with structures elevated above a canal network fed by the Passaic River. This canal acts as a natural water treatment system, returning cleansed water to its source —mirroring the spiritual renewal sought by visitors. Modular pavilions host retreats, ecological workshops, and communal rituals, blending infrastructure with ceremony.
The Center operates as a living network: stone-clad thermal cores stabilize microclimates, while lightweight, permeable structures harness breezes for relief. More than a monument, Anagata becomes a landscape of intertwined cycles-- where ecology, cultures, and contemplation converge. In a climate-altered Newark, it offers not just refuge, but an ethos of resilience rooted in care, adaptability, and sacred reciprocity.
Initial Design Concept Sketch
conceptual sketches
conept model
concept model
original + modified site
site plan
diagramatic axon
longitudinal section
longitudinal section
plan 1
plan 2
structural plan + diagram
elecation
remediation plan
membrane filter
cloister garden interior
