The British firm Bindloss Dawes has turned an old French agricultural hamlet in Mauroux, near Toulouse, into a yoga retreat. Its name, Amassa, comes from Occitan, the region’s Romance language, and means ‘to gather,’ a concept which guided the whole project.

In a rural area blessed with panoramas of the Pyrenees, the site was occupied by five buildings, and these have been carefully restored with local materials, respecting the existing masonry walls and timber beams.

The heart of the retreat is a stone barn over 300 years old, the alteration of which incorporated concrete poured on the spot. With only two small openings, the inside was dim, but the space was livened up by a new concrete mezzanine and a large, four-meter-high aperture, equipped with a floor-to-ceiling glass door. This aperture floods the interior with natural light and frames sweeping views of the landscape. Hence, besides stabilizing the original structure, the operation added an intermediate level for workshops and events, broadening the building’s use potential.

The barn’s roof was carefully repaired and insulated, using boards of sawn wood and traditional tiles. The result is a ground-level space that rises ten meters, all the way to the ridge, where concrete and stone provide more thermal mass with which to keep the place cool and also acoustically comfortable.

Amassa offers retreats combining yoga, pilates, art, meditation, and connection with nature. This project shows how a respectful design can breathe new life into a construction in disuse, and foster holistic well-being in a history-charged setting.