Monastry

i designed a series of houses for recluses which were similiar to monasteries: there was no dining room or bedroom, those were the refectory and the dorter. while the space of solace in a monastery was the cloister, in the house for a recluse, the space of inward focus was the bathroom. seriously. the entire house was centered around the bathroom, in fact the bath was the raison d'etre of the house. just as one can find scholastic knowledge in a monastic cloister, a space of inward focus, amongst their brethren, one could find solace, alone, in the bath. this is why minimalism is so great for bathrooms: when there is no decoration, just spare surroundings, one cannot hide from themselves.

the whole world is a monastry to a monk, the world is a circus to a clown and earth a playground to a child. Ever read the biography of Yul Brynner – the world is a subject to a King.

Is a monastry a place where possibly moaning monks try to work out what's missing from their surroundings?? Last time I saw the word monastery – Under Henry VIII and the Dissolution thereof – it had an extra 'e' where the effort now is.