Sustainable Building Conservation

Due to the small size, inconvenient location, and lack of proper management, Baiwo Temple, a rundown Historic (400 years) Buddhist Temple in the surburb of Shanghai is struggling in the face of Urbanizaiton. Although China has the largest Buddhist population, the overall religious population is decreasing, and about 3/4 of the people with the spending power are not religious. That means there is still a need for Buddhist worshiping, but also a need to capture the new demands and stay relevant with modern times. After the thought process of idea generation and synthesis, I propose to modify the programs of the temple which is a little simplified currently. The adoption of the Blue Ocean Strategy, which focuses on an organization’s internal operation efficiency improvement, rather than competing with external competitors, has directed the business model optimization to utilizing the existing assets of the temple and generate more revenue streams by capturing the new demands and new customer segments.

The Urbanization around the temple site has brought new neighbors of younger families and could possibly be non-religious, but for Baiwo Temple to continue to play a role in the community, it might cater to the needs of the new neighbors. I thus propose to have the Northeast corner of the site be a vegetarian Teahouse serving tea and veggie meals, and also selling Buddhist vintage items. The existing garden can yield vegetables for the meal and for picking activities which could add to the experience of nature. The stray animals can be put to work to greet the customers who come for the tea and gathering. It would be a mixed program of religious worshiping, f&b, a mini farm, and a pet zoo.

Since the building is not listed (only a couple of 400-y-o ginkgo trees are listed), there is flexibility for design intervention. The lack of law protection is both a curse and a blessing. The temple, together with the other Buddhist temples that are also struggling, can readapt the programs to be self-sustaining and play a bigger role in the community other than just religious function. The work also looked into the feasibility of this change and listed out the possible funding options, technical improvements, risk assessment, and change management to make sure such a turnaround will be executed successfully.

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