Vimutti Valley · World Dhammacakka Association · Option A (recommended) · internal 11.00 × 12.60 m = 138.6 m² · capacity 40 practitioners + 9 monks
Scale 1 : 100 | all dimensions in metres | revision 6, 31 August 2026 | companion sheet: reflected ceiling plan
Revision 6 — the tall equipment cabinets flanking the image are deleted; the north run becomes one continuous low chest at +0.75 m with lift-up lids, so the image floats in an unbroken white field as in the reference photograph. The north band is deepened 1.00 → 1.30 m to contain the base disc, which cantilevers well out from the wall. Room depth 12.30 → 12.60 m. Carried over from revision 5: flush stage front, side stairs at the far north end of the end bays.
A proposal, not a specification. Everything on this sheet is an
idea put forward for the project architect to work from. Every dimension, every position and every
detail may be changed. What must survive is the intent behind it — and where a figure is fixed by
law or by the turning circle of a vehicle, the sheet says so.
Built-in back ledgeBuddha image in Ø2.50 nicheRaised stage / monk seatingPodium band (flush face)Cabinets · store · control roomProjector screen & projector
1 · Overall sizing
Internal clear size
11.00 m (E–W) × 12.60 m (N–S) = 138.6 m²
Structural footprint
11.40 × 13.00 m = 148.2 m² (with 200 mm walls)
Clear ceiling height
4.20 m — set by the Ø2.50 niche plus the drop-down screen above it
Area per practitioner
1.65 m² gross in the seating zone
2 · Zone schedule
#
Zone
Width (m)
Depth (m)
Area (m²)
Notes
A
Raised stage — body only
9.20
3.40
31.28
Deck at +0.45 m. The stage does not touch the side walls. Depth splits 1.30 north run + 0.75 walkway + 0.95 monk row + 0.40 podium.
A1
North run — continuous low chest
9.20
1.30
11.96
Top at +0.75 m, one unbroken line across the whole stage, meeting the bottom of the Ø2.50 disc. No tall cabinet anywhere in it — storage is inside the chest, reached through lift-up lids.
A2
Storage inside the chest
—
—
≈ 6.9 m³
The chest is hollow: 0.30 m above the deck plus the 0.45 m stage void below it, over 9.20 × 1.30 m. Far more capacity than the two cabinets it replaces.
A3
Stair landings on the deck ×2
0.80
1.30
2.08
Chest omitted here — this is where a monk steps off the stair onto the deck.
A4
Monk seating row
9.00
0.95
8.55
9 places at 1.00 m centres. 0.75 m walkway behind the row.
A5
Podium band
9.20
0.40
3.68
Top +0.85 m. Face flush with the stage face, unbroken across the full 9.20 m.
A6
End bays ×2 (hall floor)
0.90
3.40
6.12
A slot of hall floor running up each side of the stage, from the front clearance band to the north wall. This is how you reach the stairs.
A7
Side stairs ×2
0.90
1.30
—
At the far north end of each end bay, climbing inward onto the deck. 3 risers × 0.15, treads 0.30, walking width 1.30. Within A6.
B
Front clearance
11.00
1.00
11.00
Kneeling space for offerings and the cross-route; also the approach landing for both stairs.
Partition only, no door — 1.00 m open access. Shelving on three sides.
D2
AV / control room (SE)
2.55
2.20
5.61
Enclosed. 0.90 m door + 1.10 m window. Mixer, amp rack, projector and screen controls, lighting, AC panel.
D3
Entry lobby / circulation
5.70
2.20
12.54
Overflow standing room for ~8 more people.
Internal total (stage band 37.40 incl. end bays + B + C + D)
138.60
within the 120–150 m² brief
The stage front is a single flush plane. Floor to +0.45 is the stage fascia; +0.45 to +0.85 is the podium face; both sit on the same line at 3.40 m from the north wall. Nothing projects — no apron, no step, no nosing, no skirting board. A donor can come forward on their knees right up to the face and place an offering on the +0.85 top without anything at knee or shin height. This follows the reference photograph, where the stage front is a plain unbroken board.
3 · North wall elevation
4 · Section A–A — centre line through the image
Levels
Element
Level above hall floor (m)
Purpose
Hall floor
± 0.00
Practitioners seated on cushions.
Stage deck
+ 0.45
Monks seated cross-legged. (Ibaraki: 0.46 m.)
Back ledge top
+ 0.75
Meets the bottom of the circular niche.
Podium band top
+ 0.85
Screen · script ledge · offering surface. Face flush with the stage face.
Ø2.50 backdrop disc
+ 0.75 to + 3.25
A disc standing proud of the wall, not a recess cut into it. Backlit from a cove behind its rim.
Base disc (แผ่นฌาน) underside
+ 1.425
675 mm above the bottom of the circle, exactly as at Ibaraki.
Top of Buddha image
≈ + 3.215
1.425 + 0.25 disc + 1.54 image. 35 mm clear of the circle top.
Storage chest lids
+ 0.75
The top of the north run is the lid line; lids hinge forward, into the walkway, never back toward the image.
Projector screen (down)
+ 2.45 to + 3.95
1.50 × 2.67 m viewing surface (16:9, ≈120"). Screen plane 3.50 m from the north wall.
Clear ceiling
+ 4.20
Screen pocket, projector, AC cassettes and downlights all above the circle.
5 · Where the screen hangs — and why not further back
The question asked: is the screen right at the stage front line, or should it drop behind monk seat no. 5? And is closer to the audience better?
Short answer
The stage front line is the correct place, and it is the only good one. It is as far back — as far from the front row — as the screen can possibly go while still hanging in front of the monks rather than behind them. Moving it forward toward the audience makes it worse in every way; moving it behind seat no. 5 breaks the room.
No — closer to the audience is not better
Moving the screen south, toward the people, does three bad things at once:
The front row's neck angle explodes. The screen has to hang high, because everyone is on the floor. The closer it comes, the steeper they look up. At the stage front line, row 1 already looks up about 55° to the middle of the picture. Move the screen 1.00 m closer and that becomes 68°; 2.00 m closer and row 1 is looking almost straight up.
It puts itself between the front rows and the monks. At the stage front line the screen is at the boundary of the stage. One metre further south and it hangs over the heads of the people in the front clearance — the ones who are there to make offerings and to see the monks.
It gains almost nothing. The back row is already at 4.2 image-heights from the screen, which is inside the standard limit for reading detail. Nobody in this room is too far away. So there is no legibility problem to solve by moving closer — only a comfort problem that moving closer makes worse.
And no — it must not drop behind seat no. 5
It would backlight the monks. A bright 120" screen directly behind the row turns nine seated monks into black silhouettes. Faces go dark; the row reads as a shadow. This is the single worst thing you can do to the composition of the front of a hall, and it is unrecoverable — no amount of stage lighting fixes a screen brighter than the faces in front of it.
It lands on the Buddha. Behind seat no. 5 is the north wall, which is where the Ø2.50 m niche is. The screen would not merely cover the image while it is down — it would have to be built into the same 2.50 m of wall the image occupies.
The gain is small. Dropping it back to the wall moves it only 1.5 m further from row 1 — improving their angle from about 55° to about 44° — while costing the two things above.
Viewing angles and distances, row by row
Screen plane 3.50 m from the north wall, picture +2.45 to +3.95 m, image height H = 1.50 m, seated eye at +1.10 m.
Row
Distance to screen (m)
In image heights
Angle up to picture centre
Comfort
Row 1
1.50
1.0 H
54°
Steep — see the note below
Row 2
2.70
1.8 H
38°
Acceptable
Row 3
3.90
2.6 H
28°
Comfortable
Row 4
5.10
3.4 H
22°
Comfortable
Row 5
6.30
4.2 H
18°
Comfortable — and still inside the 4H limit for reading detail
The one thing that is genuinely uncomfortable, stated plainly. Row 1 looks up at about 54°, row 2 at about 38°. That is inherent to a floor-seated audience with a screen that has to clear everybody's heads — it is not caused by the screen position, and no position in this room fixes it. Two practical answers, neither of them a drawing change: seat row 1 last, so it fills only when the hall is full; or treat rows 1–2 as the rows for people who came to face the monks rather than the screen. Every temple hall with floor seating has this and lives with it.
Why the picture is 2.67 × 1.50 m and the bottom edge is at +2.45 m
Bottom edge +2.45 m. A seated head is about 1.35 m tall. For row 5 to see the bottom of the picture over the head of row 4, the bottom edge must be at +2.42 m. +2.45 clears it. Lower than that and the back two rows lose the bottom of every slide.
Top edge +3.95 m. The pocket, the motor and the fixing sit above it, inside a 4.20 m ceiling.
So the picture is 1.50 m high, and at 16:9 that makes it 2.67 m wide — a 120-inch image. Going wider would need a taller ceiling, not a different position.
Projector. Lens on the centre-line, 7.50 m from the north wall — 4.00 m back from the screen, over the gap between rows 3 and 4. Throw ratio 1.5. Set out in the reflected ceiling plan.
6 · The image assembly, the cabinets, and storage under the stage
Three things settled by the third reference photograph.
a. The backdrop is a disc that stands proud of the wall — it is not a recess
This removes the wall-thickness problem entirely. The third photograph shows the white Ø2.50 m backdrop standing forward of the flat wall and casting its own shadow, with the light coming from a cove behind its rim. Nothing is cut into the wall. So the north wall can be an ordinary 200 mm wall — it does not have to be thick enough to swallow a 2.50 m niche, which it never could have been.
What to build. A shallow drum, about 0.20–0.40 m deep, Ø2.50 m, fixed to the wall, with an LED cove behind the rim washing the flat wall around it. Matt white on the drum face, matt on the wall behind.
The one structural item stays. The image and its base disc together weigh 112 kg and hang off the wall at +1.425 m. That still needs a steel bracket into RC or into purpose-built backing, set at structure stage. The drum hides the bracket; it does not carry it.
Letting the disc's rear into the drum is the trick. A 0.40 m deep drum swallows the back of the Ø1.64 m base disc, so the assembly projects about 1.20 m rather than the full 1.64 m. That is what makes the composition fit a 1.30 m band.
The one dimension to confirm before anything is built: how far the base disc actually projects from the finished wall face. The plan is drawn at 1.20 m, and the north run is 1.30 m deep to contain it with 0.10 m to spare. If the supplier says the disc cantilevers the full 1.64 m, the north run has to grow to 1.75 m (room depth 12.60 → 13.05 m) — otherwise the disc overhangs the walkway behind the monks at +1.425 m, which is exactly head height for someone walking there. Ask the supplier for the projection dimension, not just the diameter.
b. The two tall cabinets beside the image are deleted
The instinct to cut them was right. Three reasons:
They break the field the image needs. The whole effect in the photograph is a gold figure floating in an unbroken white field. Two 1.55 m boxes standing 1.35 m to either side put hard vertical edges into that field and rise 0.125 m past the base-disc line. The image stops floating and starts sitting on a shelf between two wardrobes.
They were the wrong storage anyway. Two cabinets of 1.20 × 1.00 × 1.10 m give about 2.6 m³ — and every time someone opens one, they open it in full view of the hall, beside the image.
The north run can hold far more with nothing showing. See below.
c. Storage goes under the stage, at the back, under lift-up lids
The whole north run becomes a chest. It is 9.20 m long and 1.30 m deep, and it is hollow through two levels: the 0.30 m between the deck at +0.45 and the chest top at +0.75, and the 0.45 m of stage void underneath the deck. That is roughly 7 m³ of usable storage — nearly three times what the two cabinets held — and from the hall you see nothing but a continuous line at +0.75 m under the image.
Item
Figure
Notes
Chest run
7.60 m
x 1.70 to 9.30 — the two 0.80 m stair landings at each end are left solid.
Lids
8 × 0.95 m
Each liftable by one person. Flush finger pulls, no handles standing above the line.
Hinge side
front edge
Hinged on the walkway side, opening forward with gas stays to about 80°. A back-hinged lid would swing straight into the base disc and the image.
Hardware
soft-close stays, felt-lined edges
This lid closes during meditation sessions. It must not be able to slam.
Depth available
0.75 m
0.30 above the deck + 0.45 stage void. Divide with a shelf at deck level so the top tray holds what is used daily and the void holds bulk.
Nothing under the monk row or under the podium. That part of the deck stays solid so it does not creak or drum under nine seated people.
7 · Projector screen versus the Buddha image
A screen on the centre-line, when it is down, covers the Ø2.50 m circle from +2.45 m upward — which is most of the image. That is unavoidable for any centre screen. Three ways to go:
(a) As drawn — one centre screen. Largest picture, simplest, cheapest. The image is covered while the screen is down and revealed again when it retracts.
(b) Two flanking screens, each about 1.80 m wide, left and right of the circle. The image is never covered; the picture is smaller and the cost roughly doubles.
(c) Ibaraki's own answer — no drop-down screen at all: two large wall-mounted TVs on the side walls plus a projector. The image is never covered and the ceiling can stay at 3.60 m.
8 · Reference
The room this design follows — Wat Phra Dhammakaya Ibaraki, Japan — with the principal Buddha image's real dimensions and how it is mounted, is on its own sheet: open the reference.
9 · Why the podium band sits at +0.85 m
It screens the seated row. A practitioner in row 1 has their eye about 1.10 m above the floor, 1.60 m back from the stage face. The ray that grazes the podium top passes about 0.34 m above the deck where the monks sit — laps, knees and the fall of the robe are hidden, and the monk is seen from the waist up. Drop the band to +0.75 m and the screening fails at the front row.
It works as a desk. A monk seated on the deck has his lap at about +0.60 m, so the top sits 0.25 m above it — the relation of a low writing desk.
It works for offerings. +0.85 m is counter height for a standing donor and just below shoulder height for one who comes forward on their knees. With the face flush all the way down, the knees meet nothing.
It is continuous — one band running the full 9.20 m between the two stairs, so any monk can receive at his own position and the screening line never breaks.
10 · Why the stairs are at the sides — and at the back
The stair cannot open in the stage front. The front has to be one flush board from floor to +0.85 m so a kneeling donor meets nothing at knee height. A stair opening at that face would put a stepped profile in the middle of the very plane that must stay flat. So the stage is pulled 0.90 m clear of each side wall, and the stair is placed at the far north end of the slot that this creates, hard against the built-in run.
The stage no longer touches the side walls. Its body is 9.20 m wide, leaving a 0.90 × 3.10 m bay of hall floor at each end. Both bays are open circulation.
Route to the stage. Walk north up the 1.30 m side aisle, continue straight into the 0.90 m end bay alongside the stage, reach the north wall, then turn and climb inward — three risers of 0.15 m, treads 0.30 m, walking width 1.30 m — arriving on the deck beside the built-in run, right where the walkway behind the monk row begins.
Nobody mounts the stage in front of the congregation. The climb happens at the back of the room-depth, beside the stage, out of the line of sight.
The stage front stays one unbroken 9.20 m line — nothing is cut into it anywhere.
Ibaraki reaches its stairs through doors at the two front corners. We have no side doors, so the side aisles and the end bays do that job — which is why the aisles are 1.30 m and not narrower.
11 · Openings
Opening
Clear width (m)
Position
Main entrance (double leaf)
1.80
South wall, on the room centre-line — the only external opening
Store access
1.00
North partition of the store, next to the lobby
Control room door
0.90
North partition, hall side
Control room window
1.10
North partition, facing the stage
Single opening by design. No side doors: every extra leaf in an external wall is another mosquito path and another acoustic leak.
Note for the building consent: a 139 m² assembly room served by one exit is at the limit of what most codes allow for 40 occupants. Widening the door to 2.40 m is the fix if an officer objects.
Walkway behind the monks 0.75 → 0.55, front clearance 1.00 → 0.80. North run stays 1.30.
C — if the disc projects the full 1.64 m
11.00 × 13.05
143.6
40
North run 1.30 → 1.75 m. Everything else unchanged. This is the fallback if the supplier confirms a full cantilever.
13 · Remaining design reasoning
Width is set by the monks. Nine at 1.00 m centres is 9.00 m; the two 0.90 m stair pockets take the ends; the room lands at 11.00 m.
Depth is set by the seating grid. Five rows at a 1.20 m pitch = 6.00 m, plus the 3.40 m stage, the 1.00 m front clearance and the 2.20 m rear band = 12.60 m.
Row pitch 1.20 m = 0.90 m seat depth + 0.30 m knee clearance to the row in front.
8 per row beats 10 per row — the central aisle means nobody steps over four people to reach a seat.
Air conditioning: with the ceiling at 4.20 m and 49 occupants, roughly 11–12 TR (130,000–145,000 BTU/h) in Indian summer conditions — indicative only, to be confirmed by a load calculation. Cassette positions are set out in the reflected ceiling plan.
Vimutti Valley · World Dhammacakka Association · 099 145 9635 · design packages issued to the appointed consultants. All drawings are client-prepared schematics for discussion, not construction information. Dimensions in metres.