MOUND MERU, 2018

London, UK

Mound Meru is a fictional architectural space where the future Boddhivista will be born through reincarnation, becoming a space for meditation and Buddhist retreat.
        This project was derived from features of the Cosmic Mount Sumeru that is believed to be the centre of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes in Buddhism.
        Within a vertical composition, individual forms and structures, each symbolise elements of the 31 Planes of Existence and Mount Meru, and is designed to recontextualise the narrative aspects of a new fiction story, the Jataka Tales.

Once upon a time, the Boddhivista was reborn as a dragon. He lived among the fish of the vast ocean, surrounded by the weaving tree roots that grew to the bottom of the underworld where the hells existed. Due to the pollution of the greed and the unwholesomeness actions from below, the fish started to lose their scales. When the dragon saw this, he felt sympathy and out of generosity, and gave out his own magical scales to the fish that allowed them to regrow their full set of scales.
        Slowly, all the fish in the sea were regaining their scales. However, as the dragon kept on sharing his scales, he lost all of his scales and when he plucked his last scale, he died. The fish all mourned when the dragon died and so each of them plucked one of their scales to bury the dragon, and magically, from the dragon’s grave grew a dandelion. The vast currents of the ocean and the strong winds, blew the dandelion seeds above the ground.
        On the human realm, a field of dandelion flowers bloomed, and from these flowers, bloomed fairies - this is how the Himaphan forest became what it is now. Out of the flowers, there was just one, in which not a fairy bloomed, but the human form of the Maitreya Buddha (dragon) was born. It is also believed that through the good deeds of the dragon, in the skies of heaven, beautiful golden fish swim in the clouds surrounding God Indra’s golden palace.