What's wrong with cafes?
My phone, noise, sugar, wifi, croissants, ...
This is an excerpt from a concept I’m putting together for monastic cafes. I believe there’s a major opportunity to architecturalize these ideas in a way can be experienced directly. I’ll share more about this in the coming weeks.
It’s less a problem of cafés — and more a problem of the modern world, and the inner condition it induces in us.
Here we are, trying to get work done — but find ourselves anxious, impatient, scattered. As our attention jumps from one thing to the next, fragmented from the first impulse to grab our phone, all the way up until we sit down for the moment that matters most: We sit in front of the empty page. We're trying to create, to work our craft, to give our gift — and yet our eyes and thumbs, our fingers and mouses seek out yet another hit of dopamine.
It isn't even delicious anymore, way to sweet at best, like a cake sugary beyond good taste, not nourishing us in any way, yet leaving us coming back for another bite.
We're addicts — mentally, emotionally, existentially, and it's fucking us up where it hurts most: the creative act that we know could fill our lives with meaning, create prosperity for our community, and give us a real sense of agency in the world.
This is not a problem with cafes — it's personal, cultural, technological, and even political.
That's where monastic aims to offer a space for sanity. A space beyond addiction, distraction, compulsivity. A space beyond notifications, sugar, and endless distraction.
What we're selling here is not a cafe experience, it's a life-altering quality of mind.
From the interior design of our spaces, to the ritual experiences we create, to the food we serve — everything is aimed at giving you a safe space, on all levels of your being. No temptations, no noise, no bullshit — just an unfiltered experience of your present moment, with all of the depth, vulnerability, and transformative power that it holds.
We ultimately believe that the good is to be cultivated within, that insight, revelation, and an embodied relationship with god starts in you own heart — but we believe that the right environment can help you find that space within you.
Monasteries existed for a reason, and we're bringing their spirit back into the world, and into the routines of your daily life.