A small chapel at Sayama designed by Japanese architect Hiroshi Nakamura, which features extreme gables and a roof covered in 21,000 aluminium shingles has won Architizer's 2016 A+Awards.
Nakamura and his Tokyo studio NAP created the Sayama Forest Chapel for a site at the edge of a forest, which forms part of the non-denominational Sayama Lakeside Cemetery in Japan's Saitama Prefecture.
The studio – best known for its Ribbon Chapel wrapped in twisting staircases – was assigned a small triangular plot adjacent to a quiet road for the chapel, which provides mourners with a quiet place to pray.
"I envisioned an architecture that reflects on the life as it lives by the water conserved by the forest, and eventually returns to this place after death," said architect Hiroshi Nakamura. "Thereupon, I found the forest to be the subject of prayer mutual to various religions and conceptualised an architecture that prays to the forest while surrounded by trees."
Instead of cutting back the surrounding trees to make space for the 110-square-metre building, Nakamura chose to tilt one side of the building away from the foliage. The main structure is formed from a series of excessively pointed gables constructed using larch wood beams. These meet the ground and are arranged in a snowflake-like formation. One gable provides the entrance to the building, while the others feature floor-to-ceiling glazing, ensuring the interior is filled with natural light. Each gable is connected to the next by a curved wall.
The exterior is clad in 21,000, four-millimetre-thick cast-aluminium shingles, with a ripple texture created by hand. These were bent by hand to fit flush to the curved walls of the structure.
Inside, the curved walls are lined with domed strips of wood to create the effect of flaring columns. A series of benches are arranged in front of a small alter.
Completed in 2013, the chapel was named as a winner in the religious buildings and memorials category at the 2016 edition of the Architizer A+Awards, which promote and celebrate the year's best projects and products.
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