The Chapel in the Cemetery

 

The second in a series.  This is another design I developed while an Architecture major at Oklahoma State University.   The assignment was to design a small footprint chapel that would be at the edge of an urban cemetery.

The design I came up with was based on triangles, since they seem to naturally lend themselves to this type of building, with the apex pointing skyward.

It was a simple design with a smaller triangle joining a larger triangle to form a complete building.  Sort of like generations in a family.  Heritage.  The natural progression of life.

This view shows the first thing I would change if I were to update this design.  I have no idea why I didn't have the window panes in the smaller triangle line up with those in the larger triangle.   That's the first thing I would change today.  I suspect I inked in the smaller triangle first then realized that scale didn't lend itself well to the larger structure.

This shows it at the entrance to the cemetery.

My instructor found a flaw in the design:  the orientation of the pews meant that the person speaking would be standing where the roof pierces the ground, bringing the eye downward.  He had a solution which involved a fairly large redesign that I'll show in a future post. 

Looking at it today,  I think the solution was much more simple:  simply push the pews to the other end of the room and have those seated face the other direction.  Place the stage on a platform above the Lecture Room with doors between the rooms placed on both sides of the stage.  Those sitting in the pews would look up to the speaker and their eyes would naturally rise to the high point in the room, towards the heavens.