A yoga studio is, when you strip it back, a box. At Flow in Christchurch there was no view to borrow and none of the usual props to lean on. The only places I could create atmosphere were the walls and the lighting. That constraint made it one of the hardest, and most personally affirming, projects of my career.
Most rooms give you something to work with: a fireplace, a window, a piece of architecture. A studio gives you an empty floor and four walls, because everything else has to stay clear for the practice. So the whole job became an exercise in creating warmth and intimacy from the surfaces alone.
Managed from a distance
I ran this one remotely, from Auckland, which adds its own discipline. When you can't drop in on site, everything depends on clear communication and a team you trust to respond quickly. It's the same principle that makes any project work, wherever it is: straightforward instructions, fast answers, and people who understand that timing matters.
Letting the walls and ceiling do the work
With the floor kept open, the ceiling became the canvas. Setting a patterned panel into the raised ceiling gives the practice space a centre and a warmth you could never get from a flat white lid. Around the rest of the studio, layered and concealed lighting does the heavy lifting, washing the walls softly so the room feels intimate rather than clinical, and can shift in mood as a class moves through it.
Wallpaper, room to room
Away from the studio floor, the wallpaper carries the character. A dark botanical in the waiting room, a wildflower meadow behind the light-therapy bed, a soft abstract on grasscloth in the treatment spaces. Each room gets its own mood, but they belong to one another, and every one of them is a surface that will wear years of use gracefully.
Take away the view and the props, and all you have left is the surface and the light. Which is exactly enough, if you use them well.
The joinery throughout was made by Tréology in Christchurch, whose craftsmanship I've relied on and admired for years. Of everything I've done, this is the project that proved to me what a room can do with almost nothing to start from.
What the founder said
The studio began life in 2011 as Flow Hot Yoga and, having outgrown its first home, reopened on Fitzgerald Avenue as Flow Wellbeing. Its founder, the internationally respected yoga teacher and author Donna Farhi, reflected on the finished space in Metropol magazine:
"Entering any of the studios feels like moving into a sacred space: an ancient cave, a forest glen, or the ocean's edge. The inspired interior by Sharon Cross brings these primal experiences into each room."
— Donna Farhi, yoga teacher and author, in Metropol, February 2022