Final Chapel Project: Taylor Skaufel

Overview

The goals for the my design of the chapel were clear: simplicity, sacredness, and maximize the beautiful views. All the forms are simple. To create sacredness I decided to build upon the foundation of traditional church architecture and add a new architecture feel. I kept a high ceiling because "sometimes the greatest moments in life are the time were you feel like nothing at all" (example looking at the stars). High ceilings heighten this "sacred feeling." The office, classroom, and side chapel all have beautiful views of the ocean. A theme that arose in my project was "Walking into the light." This is seen clearly through expressive light in the main chapel. The foundation of this chapel was rock, very fitting for a church. To exemplify the sturdy foundation the church is set on I made the main chapel mostly massive to give it a very long lasting/ sturdy feel. The surrounding buildings were more skeletal. This was done make the main church seem more massive. I pictured this chapel being made out of a concrete/ stone material.

Chapel
The Chapel is simple. A wall based system with large columns give it a very sturdy feel.












Side Chapel (Zen Vista)
The side chapel is where the viewer can experience the Zen Vista. You enter into this side chapel by going down a sloped corridor from the main chapel. As the person descends two feet, they come to the door of the side chapel and immediately are stunned by the view of the ocean. The solid glass wall allows no obstruction of this view.






Expressive Lighting
The Light slits at the end of the hallways the run along side the chapel invite the people to walk down the hallway. This is similar to to seeing a cracked door in the dark and wondering what is going on the other side of the door.









The light scoop at the front of the chapel provided a way for light to enter into the chapel.













Depending on the time of day, there are different lighting effects in the chapel. This picture shows the expressive light being brought into the chapel through the overhead windows. This light illuminates the columns and creates a sacred experience.









The cross cut out of the ceiling is the Beloved Detail chapel. This can only been seen at a specific part of the day. The illuminated cross on the back wall of the church










Sectional Model 1/2"
The sectional model shows the roof structure of the chapel. It is essentially a roof supported by thick beams. A ceiling rests on top of the beams with a roof layer above the ceiling.










Site Model 1/8"
The site model shows where my buildings are situated on the site.













Influential Architects
Many architects influenced my project including: Ando, Aalto, Kahn, Holl, and Fehn.

The Process by Taylor Skaufel

The process started off by building site model and starting with a massing model. One of the main things I focused on when placing my buildings on the site was that i wanted my side chapel, classroom, and office all to have spectacular views of the ocean. For my chapel, I wanted the main views to be views of the beauty of the inside of the chapel. In addition, I wanted the front of the chapel to be clearly visible from the street.

The design of my chapel is influenced mostly by holl and fehn. Holl uses light scoops to bring in light into the chapel, something i want to do. Fehn has many features that i like too. In one of the powerpoint presentations there is a concrete hallway by Fehn that really inspired me. On top of these influences, I also studied older chapels to see what it was that made them so sacred. I used these features (such as high ceilings and rectangle layout) to construct my chapel.

The chapel started off with a basic squared column structure with a big light scoop in the front. This was a great basic structure but has gone through many changes, especially since the getting feedback from the last pair of architects.









The men who came last Thursday gave me some great feedback. They gave a couple architecture projects to look at for inspiration (Loui Kahn Chapels) and pointed out some changes i could make to my project.

This weekend i went back to the trace to come up with some new ideas for the project. In doing so, I came up with great new ideas for the chapel. In the process i changed my columns from more squared structures to skinnier more triangular shapes. In addition, these columns became more part of the walls and the side hallways now walk through the columns. Also i added a big window toward the front of the chapel on the ceiling.

A couple things that i am having trouble with are the following. The shape of the side classroom: What should it look like? I need it to be simple and not distract from the chapel, yet it needs to go with chapel. I have played with multiple shapes. Nothings seems quite right yet. Some of the shapes can be seen in the picture (building furthest left and building furthest toward the front of picture). The next trouble is the roof of the area between the classroom and main chapel. Somehow it needs to flow between the two and it is not doing that yet.

Wall Project by Taylor Skaufel

I really enjoyed designing/ making my wall for the community center. I learned so much through this process. The following are a few of the things I learned in this project: skeletal vs. mass, additive vs. subtractive, habitable spaces can come in all shapes and sizes, Zen view can be really cool, how to divide a wall into a grid, the use of proportionality and repetition, how to make 3D models in Google Sketch-up, how to think from the perspective of being inside the building, and finally that cutting wood by hand takes forever :).


The Beginning

This project all began with trace paper and foam board mini models. I had so many ideas of what i wanted to do. These ideas included a moving staircase, moving walls, balconies, and sliding doors. I made wall grid designs that were 10x5, 4x5, and 4x6. I decided on doing a front wall modeled off a pinos roof my group created in the first project. In addition, a skeletal structure was to be a base for my project. A balcony would extending both inside and outside of the wall. I decided on breaking my wall into 3.2 foot grids across and 21 inch grid going up.

Building

Once i started building my project not everything was easy to build. The stairs were a particular challenge since i wanted to build stairs that were supported only by beams underneath. This was accomplished through building a jig. I was pleased how open and airy feeling my wall design turned out to be. The benches were on grid with the rest of the model. The bench seats sat at 21 inches. This is the same as the bars in the front of the wall and every third stair in the building.

I spent approximately 18 hours building this project (this is just assembly and does not include drafting time or drawings). Since i did this whole project by hand it took a while. I had many small parts (like stairs and benches) that required precise cutting.

While my wall had multiple habitable spaces, my favorite space was the the place on the balcony with the stair seating (as seen below). This space gave the inhabitant a great view of the trees in the building while giving privacy through the screen behind.

One of my favorite parts of this project was the movable door/ screen. This door functioned as the main door for the entry way. It also functioned as a screen to separate the indoor balcony from outdoor balcony when the door was opened in the entry way. This door would slide up through the floor of the balcony to create a pattern with the already existing screen.

Final Product

I was pleased with my final product. After taking pictures under the lights, it was cool to see the lighting effects that my design had on the inside of the building. Streaks of light can be seen on the ground which reflected the horizontal beams on the front of the building. This wall stayed true to my intentions: a space that opened up both the courtyard and inside to a balcony, as well as using subtractive elements in the frontal wall with the stair pattern in the windows and the inset seating area before you walk into the building. It reflected a stair theme throughout and was constructed in a very skeletal structure. Zen views could be seen as walking up the stairs or from multiple habitable spaces in the building. Overall i was pleased with how my project turned out for designing my first wall.

System Cohesion

It was important to us to create a certain cohesion between our different roof elements. The underside of our Pinos roof mimics the Fehn style with the addition of the cross beams. The entryway is a hybrid of both the Pinos and the Fehn with the angularity (Pinos) and the beams on the underside (Fehn). The vertical supports that hold the structure up also reference the nature of a tree with its diagonal branches. Finally, the bird's eye view of our system shows how we melded the entryway with the Fehn roof. Even though there is a physical break within the structure (which we wanted in order to keep the courtyard open), the overhang fills in the "gap" and creates a cohesion between the two structures.

Creating a Level, Dropped Ceiling

We started by making the strings especially long so that we could carefully lower the dropped ceiling within the space. Then, to ensure that the ceiling was completely level, we created a foam core cube to rest the wood on while the strings glued themselves to the roof.

Fehn Jig

In order to create an accurate grid system for our Fehn roof, we constructed a jig made out of foam core in which the beams could nestle into while the glue dried.