“The owner started his art collection as a teenager,” says Gavin Macrae-Gibson. “The art is symbolic of his life, so this meditation room is a place to contemplate art and the life it represents.” Architect and owner selected key pieces that would inspire calm thoughts as well as tell a story. The centerpiece is an origami light fixture approximately equivalent in size to the tatami mats below. The fixture, one of Isamu Noguchi’s Akari Light Sculptures, is a single piece of paper folded into tetrahedrons.
Curly maple floors grace this six-tatami-mat alcove while steel and glass doors open onto the adjacent terrace for an indoor/outdoor relationship that is a basic element of traditional Asian meditation rooms. The space measures about 17 feet by 12 feet and sits at one end of a U-shaped public area. Enclosed on three sides and oriented so that the one meditating faces away from the open wall, the room nonetheless flows freely into living space. “You can see it from all over,” says Macrae-Gibson, “so it adds a meditative quality even when you’re not in it.” Builder: J.S.C. Construction, Yonkers, N.Y.; Architect: Macrae-Gibson Architects, New York City; Lighting designer: Earley Light, Providence, R.I.; Photographer: Durston Saylor.
