Forest Temple Featured in Spiritual Wellness and the Built Environment
“The beautiful lattice structure is so resonant with the forest, expressing harmony and spiritual wellness,”
Forest Temple feature in Spiritual Wellness and the Built Environment by Phillip James Tabb
Architect, professor and author Phillip James Tabb explores sustainable, biophilic, spiritual, and community-oriented design of the built environment. The Texas A&M educator published Spiritual Wellness and the Built Environment in 2025, exploring how wellness and health can be woven into the fabric of everyday lives.
In chapter 12 of Spiritual Wellness and the Built Environment, The Forest Temple is positioned as an example of the ongoing pursuit of health through spatial design. Tabb expresses that the Forest Temple’s timber lattice is “resonant with the forest, expressing harmony and spiritual wellness”.
The Forest Temple is constructed out of a lightweight lattice nest which follows a regular, repeatable, non-parametric pattern for ease of constructability. The interior timber lattice is constructed from small profile 4-inch square segments. Each segment is contributed to the space from individuals across the country, uniting the community through construction. This collaboration develops a web of species, textures, and identities within the meditative space to create a sense of belonging across spiritualities and religions.
The built environment can and should be a tool to communicate and enhance wellness as it possesses the ability to influence psychological and physiological behaviours. This salutogenic philosophy is explored in depth in Constructing Health, by Tye Farrow, grounding the work of Farrow Partners in the pursuit of inspiring a health-causing built environment. Constructing Health is a primary resource and textbook at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture proving to be a seminal text in neuroarchitecture and salutogenesis. To purchase a copy of Constructing Health, see here.