Darwin Yellowhair's Final Chapel Project

I had a few major themes and ideas starting this project: the ocean, the sky, symmetry, triangular forms and hierarchy through height. I wanted the architecture and major forms of the building to bring a sense of sacredness to create a sanctuary. I felt that triangular forms were exotic, but if used correctly could be simple and astounding. This combination could create a wonderful experience, which I strived for in my design. I felt that the irregularity of the forms could be controlled if symmetry was incorporated.

The main structure of the chapel is where my design started with other spaces branching off. I chose the make the chapel not face the ocean, but face north to avoid since the wall between the pews and ocean is glass. So if they turn they can see the ocean, which adds to the experience. My zen view uses this same pane to view the ocean. It is seen in transition in the lobby where a slit, much like those outside, is cut through the thickened wall between the ocean and lobby.

I wanted a hierarchy of height to symbolize the journey to the "heavens" or "god" from Earth. The ground floor of the building is at 10' which surrounds most of the building. A 20' scoop can be seen in the lobby as the person journeys to the chapel. Then I used the 30' vertical limit in the chapel to give the feeling of ascending to "god's hands" or "heaven". The vertical beams at the highest point symbolize this as well as add expressive light for the chapel.

Interior:

The spaces within the chapel determined much of how the building was shaped. They all revolved around the pre-determined chapel structure. The side chapel is directly of the chapel proper on the south wing of the building. The classroom is on the east side of the building opposite of the chapel, which was intentional for optimum noise control. The play area is accessed directly from the classroom through a sliding door. In the center of the building are the restrooms and storage room. A thickened wall will separate these from chapel. The offices are on the north side of the building at the end of the hallway/lobby. The administrator's office is directly tied to the hall. The minister's office is past the admin. office and also directly ties to a private restroom and, more importantly, the alter. This is one of my strong points in my plan.

I tried to follow a clear and logical circulation with the chapel being the center of the building while maintaining the symmetry. It was difficult since the walls of the main chapel structure are angeled. So this naturally carried on to some of the interior walls, which I feel adds to the wonder of the building. In the chapel I wanted to maintain the concave shape of the greater chapel structure for the alter. This goal along with the angeled walls made the corridor from the office to chapel hardest to resolve. However, in the end it all worked out making the minister appear from the alter.

Expressive Lighting:

Each of the rooms excluding storage and restrooms have some form of expressive lighting. The chapel has a scoop formed by vertical pillars and translucent material. The outside rooms have slits that bring in various forms of light. The lobby has two translucent windows and two transparent windows that let in interesting light since they are in irregular triangle shapes.

Half-inch section model:

My section is cut through the center of the chapel and bounded at on the front pain to act as a henge so the chapel can open for viewing the inside.

Eighth-inch Site Model:

Inspirations:

Here's the link for the PDF of images that inspired my final design in one way or another:

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2IxVOaCmBSSYjBkYTM5ZTUtNDBmZS00OWE0LWJiZWMtZmM5ZDBhMGE3ZmEw&hl=en

Thanks to all for an awesome quarter!

Final Project, Final Post

Fulfillment of Design Goals: My main goal for this chapel was to provide an environment that encourages and facilitates reflection and introspection, and I feel my project should be evaluated with regards to how well it has accomplished that design goal as well as the overarching project goal of: "to astound us, astonish us with the play of light within the chapel..[through the use of] expressive light" (from the assignment handout). The above picture shows (with wall removed) what that expressive light looks like. The Chapel Sanctuary in general, and this gesture in particular is where I focused most of my effort on this project. I feel this particular lighting scheme provides both focus and inspiration. Focus because the main "light line" really leads you down to the altar (and lines are extremely straight forward because you can only follow them, you can't get "derailed"), and inspiration because of the sweeping ocean and reflected gestures on the side. This focus and inspiration is a requirement that I felt was critical to encourage introspection and reflection.

lighting when the sun is southeast

lighting effect when sun is south

What went well (other than expresssive light): Besides the main lighting feature, a lot of time and effort went into siting, and I felt that my final decision made a lot of sense for a number of reasons. Looking is also a nice foil to reveal my other strengths. So, if we compare my final and original site placements...



I think looking at these two pictures shows a lot about what this project was really about for me. It was about finding ways to relocate these buildings to provide order and meaningful sequences for people while making programmatic sense. Ultimately, and though I was reluctant, it meant recentralizing the buildings. I think this helped out aesthetically too, because it made it easier to develop one vocabulary instead of needing to develop ones for the other buildings. Also, the final design has the Chapel literally at the center of the space, and was successful at using the main Chapel mass to divide public and private space which I struggled to accomplish earlier.

A lot of this project (being a first studio and all) was learning how to go through the process, and all the blogging I've done was a little for you, but mostly for the sake of process capture, and learning to think about how I'm actually spending my time and what I'm doing. So aside from lighting and siting, that's the other strength I've really had.

3 STRENGTHS: expressive lighting, siting, and process capture.



Room for improvement: I really wish I had more time to develop the landscaping elements. In fact, there are many things I didn't get to due to time constraints, and some I did that just weren't as strong as my lighting. In no particular order, they are:
waterfall siting space
water flows outside of the main wall
main entrance
chapel lobby/entrance
development of path language to encourage people to move one way or another

I think the comments on relocating my entrance to the site were spot on, as were those on the lobby. My main "how to" is:
How might I relocate the entrance to the site to encourage circulation towards the chapel, while not eliminating the initial wall (not the massive one, but the one on the side of the classroom) I felt was crucial to separating the spaces?

Overall, I'm happy with the result of this project. Though I didn't get to some things I wanted to, and wish I had a little more time to develop some things, I felt I did a reasonable job of accomplishing the design goals and project criteria, while getting things done in time.

beloved detail: sitting space cut away from mass (the negative space + mass) is a scaled version of the classroom space (see aerial view below)

Chapel Progress

Circulation: I've settled on a final floor plan. I decided to choose the one that had the simplest circulation plan (everything is being simplified to it's essence): an entrance on the central axis of the chapel, with a crossing for bathrooms and a walkway to the classroom on the sides, and the chapel sanctuary dead ahead.


Proportion: Above is an elevation view (w/out the topography) of (from left to right) the side chapel, chapel, and classroom. They follow a 4, 5, 3 proportion system: the side chapel being 16' from ground level, the chapel 20', and the classroom 12'. This proportion system was meant to bring more order to the chapel compared to the previous model (below).


Prototyping: One last prototyping phase; I'm trying to mix it with construction so that I can make minor tweaks as needed. One strategy: tape buildings in place before glueing (pic above). It sounds obvious and simple, but it works very well, especially for identifying errors in measurement of cut pieces.


Construction: I've started the tedious process of putting my chapel together.
Step 1) Construct the base, and affix interior walls. I started here, because we need to make sure you can remove the roof, and since my roof will be attached to my exterior walls in the chapel sanctuary, needed to have a way to remove those too. Because my floor heights are different in the chapel, clasroom, and side chapel, this has been difficult. I wanted the ramp flush with the model, so after building the based, I attached the ramp and relevant walls. See below...




Step 2) Put together exterior chapel walls & light well support beams for altar. A notch was cut in one of the walls to just fit exactly as it needs to around the classroom chapel connection corridor.


After the walls with beams were constructed (it's neat how in this case, they really are necessary for structural integrity since I couldn't get this to stay without connecting the beams), I slid them into the structural base, and got the framed effect I had been trying for.



Step 3) Tinker with Ceiling/Roof, Expressive Light in Chapel


Step 4) Bring together main chapel with side chapel & classroom. Construct altar.


Left to Do: Ceilings and Roofs for all buildings need to be finalized, as well as a re-evaluation of fenestration. Site needs to be put up so that door for side chapel can be placed at correct level. Materials also may need to be reconsidered in entry to main chapel, since I'm not sure whether I like the low level of contrast between walls.

Final Project Posts

Hey all, when you make your final project posts this week, please use the label "Final Project Posts" so they're easy to find.

-Ben

Progress

I started designing my chapel based on the idea of guiding the congregation with a strong circulation system into and through spiritual spaces. I have expressed this idea through a strong transparent (at least above a certain height, 6 ft) corridor with a low ceiling; this corridor is set at an angle and guides the visitor through the campus. This transparent corridor will allow the visitor to see the roof above giving them awareness that they are being guided through a larger, more continuous space. The corridor is paired with a translucent cube lobby, set at a different angle (which mirrors the back chapel wall). As the corridor runs through spaces, such as the lobby, I want the walls to erode, so that some remain, but the low transparent ceiling is continuous; so inside the lobby space, even when there aren't corridor walls (as to allow movement within the lobby), the ceiling will remain as a guiding path.

These two pieces work within a system of a rectangle cut out and pieced together--with various angles working in conjunction on a large axis.


The classroom and bathroom area (seen at top of picture) fits into the cut-out of the larger rectangular system, but is displaced. This displacement defines the outdoor, courtyard area. Although not modeled here, the corridor will (via erosion) continue into the classroom space, guiding the visitor across the courtyard. The circulation is as follows through the corridor: the lobby, the chapel (through which one can access the side chapel), the office space, the courtyard, and the classroom. A thick diagonal wall, which forms a side wall of the chapel, will actually cut through the corridor sweeping visitors into the chapel with the grand gesture of the thick angled wall, or squeezing (through a condensed space) visitors onwards through the corridor.

I want my main chapel to be a place for communal worship, so I have designed an inward-facing chapel. Therefore I want to focus on how to bring that into the space--via central light and form--rather than outward facing vista views. On the other hand, I want my side chapel to be all about the view; I want that space to be a low slung, outward looking chapel in which visitors may sit and be contemplative or spiritual individually. I have been playing with the specific siting of the side chapel; I'm playing with how I want it to be and feel connected to the chapel, and how it will fit into the larger puzzle-like system. At this point I think I want to extend the angled side wall of the chapel, letting it define a small outdoor space, and then becoming the side wall off the side chapel.

I've tried to define both of these ideas of circulation and focus in two central ways: light and form. I'm using a light system based off of the concept behind my wall project--a system of falling glass on a grid, which lets light flood in at the top and more "peek" views below. I want to use this system to guide circulation on the front wall of the whole campus/building, I want to use it to let light, but not view in to the main chapel, and I want to use it as the guiding connection from the main chapel to the side chapel. The form I want to use is that of the wave. It's in reference to the waves just off of the cliffs of the location; and I think the undulation helps define the focus and experience of the viewer. In the main chapel the wave will encompass the entire space, serving as a ceiling; it will meet the wall of the entrance (I'm still playing ideas for this wall) and drape just in front of it. I hope to make this interaction (between the wall and the wave) a unique experience, and my beloved detail. I want to let light in to this unique gap space, and for the visitor to experience this installation-like space upon entrance to the chapel. The wave of the side chapel should be going the other way--out towards the ocean, so that the visitor's attention is drawn out and to the ocean; this wave will start as the roof, become the wall, and then the floor providing one continuous sight line. I am also still questioning materiality of the two waves, and how that may differ based on the difference in purpose. The specifics of the wave shape will be determined by actual ocean wave algorithms (based off depth of ocean just off of the site).


The two images above are of my 1/2" scale section model and show my first iteration of the wave as a draping roof/ceiling.
I was unsatisfied with the flat roofs following the waves, so I have abstracted the wave into a more angular, regular roof system, so that the wave then becomes a more regular part of the building and overall system. I am still playing with whether this abstracted wave will be the actual roof, or will be a second, floating roof. It may span the two buildings as shown above, making the courtyard a semi-outdoor space.

Few light studies

I really like the lighting effect of the sun, here. This one shows how far down the sunlight can go (all the way down to the ground, and about halfway on the wall is when it started to be less shiny. On the right side of the picture where the altar space is, the light is very bright (i will be fixing this to decrease the intensity/disperse the light more), but i like how the roof has a reflection of the light from the bright wall (which does not touch the roof system), making it seem continuous/contingent with one another. This adds to the effect of a light roof/space. This seems to dissolve boundaries and planes, that though the space is physically enclosed, the mind/spirit is not bounded like the line that visually continues up despite another plane.
I hope to keep this effect when choosing actual materials, since foam core board has reflective qualities.

From the sides of the chapel (mostly the west where the sun sets), the light effect would be more like this (left).
The soft orange light adds a peaceful ambiance to the chapel. There is a nice reflection here also, that is very tranquil. I am going to play more with meaningful light/reflection effects.

process

For this project, I chose to have a simpler design (in contrast to my wall project) that corresponds with my last post. Therefore, my chapel's design intentions are not to impress (Forms will be mostly functional, and minimum intricate designs) but to through experiencing the inside/circulation paths

My 1st study mass model showing the box forms, so that I start out very simple, easy to fix later.



I then received advise to make the corridor (a quiet darker pathway guided by soft light between the roof and the other wall, leading to a framed ocean view) very interesting/welcoming for people, because here is where the enlightening moment is experienced. A peaceful walk, ending in a very bright zen room/entrance to the chapel, with the ocean view to uplift the person, after a semi-gloomy walk, guided by soft light and the view of the ocean. This version also gave me challenges, for example I cannot seem to know where to place the lobby, without it being (1) hidden, (2) blocking circulation, (3) not enough space for a small gathering. For now I left it as an optional lobby, where you can enter to wait for people, and also a glance to the ocean view. Also, I am worried about the roof system for that small pathway created.

I am currently working on resolving these problems.