Kitchen Place at WBD Buddhist Meditation Centre

Community Collaborative Project and construction in Dharug National Park

I was asked to design a new kitchen at the Wat Buddha Dhamma soon after arriving there for the first time early in 1996. The old kitchen burned down the previous year.

We agreed to design and build the new kitchen next to an existing simple timber admin building and somehow integrate them together. However due to high fire danger the new kitchen needed to be designed following strict fire protection rules. The whole project was run as a collaborative community project with many discussion and meetings, the community raising the money for construction through the publication of the WAT cooking book, and many volunteer weekends spent in 1997 building it.

The highlights for me were working in a beautifully built and community run Buddhist Retreat Centre located in Dharug Nationa Park. Originally imagined by a former Kew Gardens horticulturalist and a Buddhist scholar and a monk Pra Khantipalo (Lawerence Mills) and financed by a Ilsa Ledherman (later known as a world famous author and a Buddhist nun Ayya Khemma) the Wat Buddha Dhamma has been for me a living example of ecological design and collaborative community in action. Located in the former ancient Aboriginal camping site and surrounded by several sacred sites the place inspired a wonderful collection of buildings linked by firetrails and pathways built since its beginnings from a humble farmhouse cottage (later WAT library) in 1978. The community was aware of the constantly present Bushfire danger and adopted ways to manage the risk in the economical and clever ways. The daily raking of the pathways and areas around all structures was as deeply valued as spiritual practice as sitting in meditation. The Bushfire team from Batemans Bay fires were invited late in 1996 and I was thrilled to be involved in the training which included stories about bushfire behavior. The force of the wind carrying sparks and flying embers followed by fire front, like a terrifying dragon coming loud and fast like a train with 2000deg temperature blasting everything on first contact leaving behind a quieter and not as hot zone of flames - no chance for our lungs or eyes or skin. And more stories how to build, how to protect buildings, how to protect community and how to protect yourself.

I spent 10 years at the WAT getting involved in bushfire protection and managing many volunteer weekends. The WAT kitchen and other building survived two major bushfires which burned the forest around them in 2002 and in 2020. Since then I have been involved in designing many buildings around Sydney in Bushfire zone and have enjoyed helping people to understand how to design ecologically in harmony with nature while understanding the principles of designing in bush fire prone areas.