smokin'

The Field Chapel is a project by the students of an Advanced De-sign/Build Studio, Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture in Chicago. The project was intended for an ecumenical church co-operative in Boedigheim, Germany. Like all chapel, the task was to design a place of spirituality - Surprise Surprise! The site is situated on a hill between the villages of Boedigheim, Seckach and Großeicholzheim and can only be reached by foot or by bicycle. Saying that, the structure can be seen from afar.

The whole construction of the chapel follows a traditional building method and its simple shape is related to both the Biblical Temple of Solomon and the vernacular tobacco-drying barns found in the surrounding region. The entire wooden construction rests on 8 steel moment-frame anchors, which are sized to expose a thin gap between the massive brick platform and the timber structure. These joints make the heavy building appear to hover weightlessly above the ground plane. The 3-meter high building base seems monolithic, and the full-timber diagonal bracing that lends the structure its stiffness is hidden from view – initially by diagonal planking that is an integral part of the structural system, then ultimately by the 50 mm wood siding that covers the entire first level.