Community: Constructing Community
It’s 5.30pm on a sunny Monday evening and I’ve arrived at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre on Park Road for my weekly yoga class. But today I’m not here just to give my muscles a stretch. I’m on a mission to find out the story behind the renovations that have recently transformed the building. Gone is the imposing and rather intimidating heavy wooden side entrance; instead visitors are now welcomed through a large, central glass doorway into a glazed atrium at the heart of the centre. The changing rooms that once evoked visions of school games lessons from the 1950s now feel fresh and modern with colourful mosaic mirrors and natural stone tiles.
I ask Prabhakara, the centre’s resident yoga teacher and the bendiest person I have ever met, who I should talk to about the refurbishments, and he takes me to find Dharmashura, the Director of the centre. We discover him standing on tiptoes and wrestling with a tape measure in a slightly fraught discussion about light fittings. Although the bulk of the building work is complete, it’s clear that there is still more to do. Leaving others to battle with the light fitting, we grab a couple of chairs in the centre’s cafe so that he can give me the low down.
He is keen to talk about the history of the centre and I soon discover that the building we’re sitting in has a colourful past. It is essentially two separate properties. The part that fronts onto the street is Victorian, built as a domestic residence in the 1860s, then used as a synagogue from the 1950s, before becoming the Birmingham Buddhist Centre in 1998. The rear, which now houses the purpose-built yoga studios, dates from the 1960s and over the years has housed kitchens, function rooms and the Windhorse publishing company. It’s taken fifteen years, but these two separate parts have finally become one.
“Joining the two buildings together was always the plan,” explains Dharmashura, “but when we first bought the property there were so many things that needed fixing we just did what was essential to get the centre up and running. There have been some small scale refurbishments over the years, such as turning the offices at the back into the yoga studios, but we didn’t have the resources to tackle the large scale building work. It was made possible five years ago when we were left a very generous legacy by one of our members. We wanted to do something specific with the money, not just use it up on running costs, and that’s when we started pulling ideas together and drawing up definite plans for what you see around you now.”
Generous as it was, the legacy alone was not enough to finance such a big project, so an appeal was launched, asking the centre’s users and the wider community for both donations and suggestions. And there was one thing everyone seemed to agree on.
“It soon became very clear that the priority was the toilets. They hadn’t been updated since the 1960s and, well, you can imagine the state that they were in!”
Other key aims of the plans included restoring the original entrance and improving access for disabled people. This is something Dharmashura feels very strongly about.
“The city council like to see disabled access included in new schemes, but we were also very happy to do it. It’s important not just to say that people with disabilities are welcome, but to really demonstrate it. One of our underlying principles is that of removing any barriers that might prevent people accessing our services. This doesn’t just stop at putting in a disabled lift - we don’t charge for the meditation classes or Buddhist activities. Payment is completely voluntary - people just donate what they want to give.”
Like the building, the organisation has also changed and expanded since its first inception, in a house on Salisbury Road bought by “two computer whizz kids” in the 1980s. The registered charity now owns a number of properties around Moseley where followers of Buddhist teachings live communally. The centre’s roots in the community are very important to Dharmashura.
“What pleases me the most about the whole project is the way so many people rallied round and contributed. There were fund raising events such as jumble sales, coffee afternoons, evening banquets and live music events. Everything we needed was willingly given, from financial donations, to gifts of materials, such as the tiles used in the bathrooms, as well as people’s time and skills, particularly when it came to the decorating. When I look around the centre now I know who painted that wall, who put up those notice boards, who brought in the plants over there. The pictures on the walls are by a local photographer who gave them to us free of charge. One of my friends came and did the plastering. Three of us spent a whole day assembling and staining flat pack furniture. It wouldn’t have been the same if we’d just paid a contractor to do all the work. It’s been a real community effort.”
Given the scale of the project, and how much was done by volunteers, it’s all gone remarkably smoothly.
“We don’t do major building work very often, so it’s definitely been a learning experience, and quite nerve wracking at times. There were a few niggly issues, and small delays, but the only major problem we had was when the builders were digging out the foundations of the glazed atrium that links the two buildings. They discovered that the foundations of the 1960s extension didn’t meet the current building regulations. They basically had to dig a massive hole and fill it with concrete, which cost us an extra thousand pounds, but on the whole, for a project this size, we’ve been very fortunate.”
The bulk of the project has now been completed, an achievement celebrated in September 2012 with the grand opening of the new entrance way. However, the work won’t be finished for a little while yet.
“We held off on the next phase because we wanted to see if we still had enough money left after the main work was completed. Thanks to the generosity of those who donated their time, skills and materials, we still have enough to go ahead with the final part of the plan - turning the old corridor into multi-purpose rooms, places people can use for meditation, meetings, storage, that kind of thing.”
It’s time for my yoga class, so I thank Dharmashura for his time, wish him good luck with the next stage of the refurbishment, and run off to get changed, while he returns to his plans. After being put through my paces by Prabhakara, I emerge once again into the cafe, where a large crowd has gathered for tea and chat before one of the centre’s popular meditation sessions. I ask a couple of people what they think of the new space, and they are unanimous in their praise.
Sheila has been coming to meditation classes “on and off” for about four years. “It was very closed in before,” she explains, “It felt very small, especially when there were lots of people here. But the glass ceiling has really lifted it, made it feel much bigger.”
Another regular, Brian, believes that the changes have had a real effect on the people using the centre. “The new tea room is much more interesting with different shapes and spaces. It has more of a cafe environment now and people are talking more, communicating better with each other.”
And this seems to me to symbolise the whole enterprise. An engineering project that aimed to connect two buildings and create a feeling of open space has ended up connecting people and encouraging visitors to be more open with each other. The legacy of the refurbishment won’t be in its bricks, glass and furniture, but in the community spirit that made it possible.
(Published in 'Moseley B13' May 2013)
I ask Prabhakara, the centre’s resident yoga teacher and the bendiest person I have ever met, who I should talk to about the refurbishments, and he takes me to find Dharmashura, the Director of the centre. We discover him standing on tiptoes and wrestling with a tape measure in a slightly fraught discussion about light fittings. Although the bulk of the building work is complete, it’s clear that there is still more to do. Leaving others to battle with the light fitting, we grab a couple of chairs in the centre’s cafe so that he can give me the low down.
He is keen to talk about the history of the centre and I soon discover that the building we’re sitting in has a colourful past. It is essentially two separate properties. The part that fronts onto the street is Victorian, built as a domestic residence in the 1860s, then used as a synagogue from the 1950s, before becoming the Birmingham Buddhist Centre in 1998. The rear, which now houses the purpose-built yoga studios, dates from the 1960s and over the years has housed kitchens, function rooms and the Windhorse publishing company. It’s taken fifteen years, but these two separate parts have finally become one.
“Joining the two buildings together was always the plan,” explains Dharmashura, “but when we first bought the property there were so many things that needed fixing we just did what was essential to get the centre up and running. There have been some small scale refurbishments over the years, such as turning the offices at the back into the yoga studios, but we didn’t have the resources to tackle the large scale building work. It was made possible five years ago when we were left a very generous legacy by one of our members. We wanted to do something specific with the money, not just use it up on running costs, and that’s when we started pulling ideas together and drawing up definite plans for what you see around you now.”
Generous as it was, the legacy alone was not enough to finance such a big project, so an appeal was launched, asking the centre’s users and the wider community for both donations and suggestions. And there was one thing everyone seemed to agree on.
“It soon became very clear that the priority was the toilets. They hadn’t been updated since the 1960s and, well, you can imagine the state that they were in!”
Other key aims of the plans included restoring the original entrance and improving access for disabled people. This is something Dharmashura feels very strongly about.
“The city council like to see disabled access included in new schemes, but we were also very happy to do it. It’s important not just to say that people with disabilities are welcome, but to really demonstrate it. One of our underlying principles is that of removing any barriers that might prevent people accessing our services. This doesn’t just stop at putting in a disabled lift - we don’t charge for the meditation classes or Buddhist activities. Payment is completely voluntary - people just donate what they want to give.”
Like the building, the organisation has also changed and expanded since its first inception, in a house on Salisbury Road bought by “two computer whizz kids” in the 1980s. The registered charity now owns a number of properties around Moseley where followers of Buddhist teachings live communally. The centre’s roots in the community are very important to Dharmashura.
“What pleases me the most about the whole project is the way so many people rallied round and contributed. There were fund raising events such as jumble sales, coffee afternoons, evening banquets and live music events. Everything we needed was willingly given, from financial donations, to gifts of materials, such as the tiles used in the bathrooms, as well as people’s time and skills, particularly when it came to the decorating. When I look around the centre now I know who painted that wall, who put up those notice boards, who brought in the plants over there. The pictures on the walls are by a local photographer who gave them to us free of charge. One of my friends came and did the plastering. Three of us spent a whole day assembling and staining flat pack furniture. It wouldn’t have been the same if we’d just paid a contractor to do all the work. It’s been a real community effort.”
Given the scale of the project, and how much was done by volunteers, it’s all gone remarkably smoothly.
“We don’t do major building work very often, so it’s definitely been a learning experience, and quite nerve wracking at times. There were a few niggly issues, and small delays, but the only major problem we had was when the builders were digging out the foundations of the glazed atrium that links the two buildings. They discovered that the foundations of the 1960s extension didn’t meet the current building regulations. They basically had to dig a massive hole and fill it with concrete, which cost us an extra thousand pounds, but on the whole, for a project this size, we’ve been very fortunate.”
The bulk of the project has now been completed, an achievement celebrated in September 2012 with the grand opening of the new entrance way. However, the work won’t be finished for a little while yet.
“We held off on the next phase because we wanted to see if we still had enough money left after the main work was completed. Thanks to the generosity of those who donated their time, skills and materials, we still have enough to go ahead with the final part of the plan - turning the old corridor into multi-purpose rooms, places people can use for meditation, meetings, storage, that kind of thing.”
It’s time for my yoga class, so I thank Dharmashura for his time, wish him good luck with the next stage of the refurbishment, and run off to get changed, while he returns to his plans. After being put through my paces by Prabhakara, I emerge once again into the cafe, where a large crowd has gathered for tea and chat before one of the centre’s popular meditation sessions. I ask a couple of people what they think of the new space, and they are unanimous in their praise.
Sheila has been coming to meditation classes “on and off” for about four years. “It was very closed in before,” she explains, “It felt very small, especially when there were lots of people here. But the glass ceiling has really lifted it, made it feel much bigger.”
Another regular, Brian, believes that the changes have had a real effect on the people using the centre. “The new tea room is much more interesting with different shapes and spaces. It has more of a cafe environment now and people are talking more, communicating better with each other.”
And this seems to me to symbolise the whole enterprise. An engineering project that aimed to connect two buildings and create a feeling of open space has ended up connecting people and encouraging visitors to be more open with each other. The legacy of the refurbishment won’t be in its bricks, glass and furniture, but in the community spirit that made it possible.
(Published in 'Moseley B13' May 2013)
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