THE YOGA REPUBLIC Studio

The Yoga Republic – formally known as Bikram Yoga on Republic opened in Feb 2007 as a Bikram only yoga studio in Fontainebleau Village shopping centre. As we centred our love of all things, it influenced the yoga too and we soon realised that there was way more to this amazing practice that we needed to offer. So in 2009, we extended to the shop next door – and evolved to become The Yoga Republic 🙂 also adding a small flow studio. We had big plans for this yoga studio and our community, and we knew that we needed to be the change and make a move to being more earth, animal and people friendly. So after a long mission we finally found our forever home and under Clint’s genius guidance, we turned a very dodgy run-down small shopping centre into one of the most amazing eco yoga studios in the world. Full moon on 26th of January 2013 saw us open our doors to this amazing new eco space. From its conception, our dear friend Vanishree, consulted and guided all building design and architecture, ensuring all the important elements of Vaastu Shastra were implemented. Claire’s dream is now a living reality – an earth, animal and people friendly space where people can come to connect with themselves, and breathe happy!! It’s Yoga for the People! OUR ECO-FRIENDLY STUDIO A result of many years of ideas and dreams about creating the most natural and Eco friendly building that we could provide. So we consolidated all our ideas and started to design around the laws of nature and Vaastu Shastra. By keeping to natural earth tones and simple, practical design we created our amazing, dream studio. AND SO CONSTRUCTION BEGINS The entire building was gutted except for the skeletal steel structure and two walls. The old bricks were cleaned up and reused and the brick force (the wire that gave the walls strength) was gathered and rolled up, and now hangs in the double volume area of the restaurant as an ornamental piece, paying homage to the old building. All rubble was either reused to build up the parking area or was sent to a crushing site to be recycled into reusable building material. AN ENERGY EFFICIENT YOGA STUDIO Particular attention was given to lowering the energy consumption of such a large building, by bringing in natural light and natural airflow, without the use of expensive air-conditioning and lighting systems. The hot water for the showers was a concern, so we implemented an insulated circulation system that provides hot water on tap, heated by integrated heat pumps. This has more than halved our hot water energy costs. Hot Yoga is one of The Yoga Republic’s main draw cards, and it’s also the main culprit for high energy consumption. We knew we had to resolve this if we were to call our new studio Eco friendly. So we met with various suppliers and engineers and finally came to a solution for a perfectly healthy and balanced heated studio. The room is designed to contain the generated 38°C heat for up to 72 hours. During a hot yoga session ample fresh air is provided with approximately 60% humidity. This makes for a perfectly balanced hot yoga experience. The energy costs have more than halved compared to the previous studio. ECO FRIENDLY IN EVERYTHING WE DO When paint was necessary, we used Eco friendly paints. But for the most part walls were left naked to reveal the beauty of the natural clay bricks, and some walls have been washed with cement. Vertical Gardens were introduced to bring nature into the studio and create a serene atmosphere.