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A Floating Tea House for Garden Meditation Retreats

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Suspended above ground like a Japanese lantern is this charming Oriental garden folly by David Jameson Architect.

The bronze, red cedar and glass tea house/meditation space appears as if by magic in the garden of an otherwise pedestrian suburban home in Betheseda, Maryland.

The family will use the space not only to delight in its beauty, meditate and enjoy a tea ceremony, but to showcase performances of music recitals.

A giant steel moment frame above the edifice suspends it in space, so that someone practicing meditation is actually floating above the world.

The smooth refinement of its red cedarwood ceiling adds to the pure focused intensity of the simple structure.

Not only does this send a reddish glow at night from the suspended “lantern” but it also clarifies the musical notes during recitals.

By day the space blends unobtrusively into the suburban garden.

But by night, the exquisite, almost magical space calls to you, compelling the resumption of meditation.

“One is funneled into a curated procession space between strands of bamboo,” says the architect; “conceived to cleanse the mind and prepare one to enter the object.”

“The visitor occupies the structure as a performer with a sense of otherworldliness.”

The exquisite refinement of the structure and the mass-produced industrial steel truss that holds it up don’t seem at odds with each other.

Both worlds, the modern industrial steel, and the beautifully finished lantern room it suspends in space are best fit for their purpose.