Vedic architecture is by no means limited to
Iowa's borders,
however. In the past 10 years, MGC has worked on Vedic homes for
clients in Jackson Hole, Wyoming;
Austin, Texas; and Potomac,
Maryland; it has retrofitted other homes with Vedic elements. The
practice isn't just confined to residential design. In addition to
building the 27,000-square-foot Comprehensive Blood and Cancer
Center in Bakersfield,
California, MGC is currently working with
the Tower Companies, one of
Washington's largest commercial
real-estate developers, on a 200,000-square-foot office building in
Rockville,
Maryland. The building is expected to be a prototypical
smart/green workplace incorporating Vedic architecture and
earth-friendly building materials.
What's more, since MGC pioneered Vedic design principles nearly a
decade ago, other home builders and architectural firms, such as
Lexington, Kentucky-based Veda Design and Boone, North
Carolina-based Karu Architects, have instituted Vedic theory into
many of their homes and office projects across the country.
Florida-based builders Richard Bialosky and David Ederer are
breaking ground this winter on Mandala Club, a 90-unit
Vedic-designed planned residential community being built in Vero
Beach. At its core, Vedic architecture proposes that the direction
a building faces (east dissipates fear, disease, and poverty; west
fosters health decline and loss of income), the size and placement
of the rooms (based on mathematical formulas prevalent in the
universe and nature), and the materials with which the building is
made (all natural and nontoxic) all objectively influence the
quality of life of the users. "It has nothing to do with the
architectural style or the size of the home," offers MGC's Lipman.
Instead, he says, it's usually a question of placement. "When I'm
designing a house, I focus on where to place the kitchen, the
master bedroom, the study, and the living room, based on different
qualities of the sun's energies as it passes overhead," he says,
noting that Vedic rules pinpoint living rooms in the central west
portion of the house as more convivial, kitchens in the southeast
corner for better digestibility, and master bedrooms in the
southwest corner for being more conducive to rest. Although linked
more to spirituality than to religion, all Vedic homes also have a
meditation room in the northeast corner to strengthen the effect of
meditation or prayer. And they all contain a Brahmasthan, or a
silent central core, which literally translates into "establish
wholeness."