Chapel for the soul

Project idea

The Sense of Home
“Home is the place where one belongs. It is a place of privacy, peace and safety. It is an island, separated from the rest of the world, where time slows down, even stops. Home is a place where we can dream and replenish our strength and mood. It is the spatial framework of our memories as well as the starting point of our perception and understanding of the world”.
The main task was to design a simple and modest object focusing on the mental and emotional quality of architecture connected to the atmosphere of home.
The sense of home is not something you can feel at a place you have visited only once, but a place where you go all over again, making you feel preserved from everything, offering you peace and safety. Having all of this in mind, we are choosing a location for the project which offers an inspirational view to the colorful layers of the forest and its south-east orientation provides favorable conditions. It is hardly visible from the street so it ensures the peace and safety and the steepness of the terrain emphasize the liveliness of the location. The emotional feelings evoked by the character of the place make you feel the “sense of home” outside your home.

Project description

The distance from the nearby houses, the small dimensions and the central plan of the object evoke a monumental feeling, emphasized in the inside space by the central access and the centered opening in the roof which allows light and rain to come in through the both levels. Those main characteristics of the project, led us to the name “a chapel for the soul”, because the object does not have a strictly defined program; its only function will be feeling the atmosphere created by the water, light and its reflection.
Analyzing the traditional architecture, we choose the fireplace, the hip roof and the use of local materials (wood and stone) as references that will serve us for the further development of the project. The object itself is slightly separated from the terrain, the access to the upper level is provided by a small wooden bridge, and in the ground level we integrate a rock from the terrain left in its natural form. The presence of elements from the traditional Macedonian house make the visitor to feel the sense of home. The pool in the ground floor is the interpretation of a fireplace, a central gathering space which evoke a sense of community, security, safety. These are feelings equivalent to "the sense of home"; that's what make you feel at home – outside your home.
The transparency of the two opposing facades make the object to blend with nature; all different colorful layers of nature are visible throughout the building. The object itself is minimally visible from the street and the impression of this minimal artificial presence invites the passengers to get closer to it. The water and the integrated rock in combination with the light and its reflection in the water create an expressive atmosphere inside. The feelings evoked by visiting this object express the previously mentioned emotional experience and psychological qualities of architecture.

Technical information

To ensure a minimal contact with the nature, the ground floor is defined by stone walls that surround a part of nature without any treatment to the floor surface. In contrast to this massive ground level, on the upper level is applied light wooden construction. The south-east and northwest façade of the building are perforated, and the northeast and southwest facade are completely closed, which directs the view towards the picturesque nature. The characteristic hip roof for the nearby houses, in the object itself, is set inverted which allows the raindrops fall into the central pool. With this variation of the traditional element, we highlight the difference that the object is not a classical house. The upper and lower levels are not physically connected through the inner space, but only have a visual connection. The access to the lower level is by console stairs on the facade of the building, and in the thickness of the stone walls there are niches that are used for sitting and enjoying the game of light and shadow, so that the whole interior is purified from elements that could interfere the expression of light.

Co-authors

Milica Saveska