cultural center

Religious Temple & Community Center

A Hindu temple occupies a former farmers market building—an ordinary structure adapted to hold an extraordinary spiritual life. Within its utilitarian shell, a pantheon of deities lines the main hall, anchored by the principal deity at its center. The architecture, however, has remained largely unchanged, unable to fully reflect the cultural and ritual depth of the community it serves.

This project begins with a question: how can a Hindu temple move beyond inherited ornamental forms and speak in a contemporary architectural language? Rather than treating tradition as something to be replicated, we understand it as something to be extended. The most revered temples of India were not repetitions of the past, but radical and experimental works of their time.

We see the renovation as an opportunity to reclaim that spirit of experimentation. The design seeks clarity over decoration, meaning over motif, and ritual over image. Architecture becomes a framework for worship—shaping movement, light, gathering, and pause—rather than a surface for applied symbolism.

The project proposes a Hindu temple that is at once rooted and forward-looking: a space where ancient practices find expression through modern form, and where community, ritual, and architecture are brought into a shared present.