The Field Chapel is a project designed and executed by the students of an Advanced Design/Build Studio at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture in Chicago, led by Professor Frank Flury. Located in Bödigheim, Germany, the chapel was designed for a ecumenical church co-operative in the Odenwald/Bauland, a rural region in northern Baden-Württemberg. The project was assisted by the firm Ecker Architekten (Buchen, Germany) and by the craftsmen and townspeople of the area; all participants gave their time freely.
Program
The task of the design was to create a place of spirituality. Professor Flury defined the project for the twelve students who come from Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Tennessee and China, as "an interdenominational chapel, a space for people to commune with their God, a place for quiet reflection or simple meditation, but also one that welcomes hikers and cyclists who appreciate a beautiful rest stop with a higher quality."
Background and Participants
In January of 2008, the Reverend Moser-Feesche contacted Ecker Architekten with the dream of building a chapel. He had no funding, no property, and did not have the support of his congregation. He did, however, have a specific idea about what this building should be and where it should be located.
Believing that it would be a good fit, Dea Ecker contacted her friend and former classmate Frank Flury, a Professor teaching an Advanced Studio in Design-Build at the IIT College of Architecture in Chicago. Flury’s students have designed and built a variety of projects in the U.S. that have had a positive social impact. This was the first viable possibility for the IIT students to execute an international project.
In December 2008, Prof. Flury visited Bödigheim to examine the site and to discuss the project with the Reverend. After this initial meeting project responsibilities were agreed upon: Flury and his students would guide the design and construction of the building, Ecker Architekten would work with local officials and obtain necessary building permits, and Reverend Moser-Feesche would secure property rights and assemble the community for the volunteer work necessary to complete the project.
In January 2009 Flury proposed the project to the students at IIT and received an enthusiastic response. Over the next 2 months 14 students developed three design alternatives. In March 2009, these projects were personally presented to the governing municipality of Buchen and the townspeople of Bödigheim, Seckach and Großeicholzheim. After lengthy discussions, two projects were chosen for further development, with Prof. Flury ultimately responsible for choosing a feasible final proposal. Armed with a donation of lumber from the city of Buchen, the Professor from Chicago and the Reverend with an idea asked for the trust and help of the townspeople to realize the project. With commitments from the local blacksmith, carpenter, sawmill owner, and the farmer on whose field the chapel was to be built, the town of Bödigheim agreed to implement the project.
From March through May, the Design-Build Studio and Ecker Architekten were in constant contact while Prof. Flury and his students developed a design, construction of which could be completed in a single summer semester. E-mail, AutoCAD, and Skype teleconferencing were the tools used to translate a student project designed in an American university into a set of working documents that met German standards. Dea Ecker contacted the local officials and prepared drawings to obtain the necessary permits in time for the groundbreaking scheduled for early June. The Reverend Moser-Feesche and the community were responsible for the acquisition of the property and collection of donations as well as the coordination of accommodation for the students during the construction phase.
The student group arrived in Germany during the first week of June. Despite an unusually rainy summer, the project progressed smoothly. With the help of countless volunteers, the chapel was constructed in just 8 weeks and on 25 July, 2009, over 400 people witnessed its official benediction
Design
The ecumenical chapel stands on a high point, in the hilly fields between the villages of Bödigheim, Seckach and Großeicholzheim.
The structure is visible from afar, but can only be reached by foot or by bicycle via a steep country lane. When arriving at the site, a narrow footpath leads between an existing hedge and the windowless tower facade to a gravel forecourt, which is bounded on 2 sides with massive benches made of local limestone. This forecourt represents the secular realm. A brick platform, which traverses the profane to the divine, rises from this forecourt and from here visitors enter the first room of the chapel, a 10 foot square enclosed patio, open to above. Surrounded by 4 closed walls, views are limited to the sky and the tower which en-closes the chapel sanctuary. Within the sanctuary, also 10 foot square, views are limited by the 30 foot tall roofed tower, to the interior. The attention of the visitor is, through the transition form outside to inside, brought from exterior concerns to the interior life.
The students developed outdoor facilities and space as a logical consequence of interaction. According to the students, "the courtyard and chapel are situated in a sea of faith; the secular and the sacred touch each other; they are connected with one another.”
Fabrication
From the outset of the project’s development, assembly details were designed to ensure that the chapel could be completed by students who had limited construction experience. The students developed the drawings in various CAD programs and the pieces for the entire wooden structure were cut on a CNC ma-chine according to the student’s drawings. The receiving slots for the louvers, in the four main columns of the tower, were hand routed on site. Due to the generosity of the local carpenter, it was not necessary to cut a single piece of wood on site, thus allowing the chapel to be built in the given time frame.
Aspects of Sustainability
The project is in the truest sense of the word sustainable; the chapel design was based upon utilizing donated, renewable and local materials. The wood came from the municipal forests of Buchen and Bödigheim and was dried and cut at a sawmill less than 2 miles from the chapel site. The high sap content of the wood used, larch, allowed a construction without any weatherproofing of the wood surfaces which will eventually weather to a silver-grey patina. Bricks used in paving the tower platform were left over from a nearby building site and donated to the project. The gravel used for the forecourt was dredged from the Main River, and limestone blocks were quarried within walking distance of the chapel. All the components were either fabricated by the students in the carpenter’s shop or made by local craftsmen. With the exception of the steel used in the screws and column anchors, all the materials came from within 30 miles from the building site.
The Dematerialization of Traditional Construction
Apart from the architectural filigree of the tower enclosure, the building appears traditional in its construction. It has a simple shape, and is formally related to both the biblical Temple of Solomon and to vernacular tobacco-drying barns still found in the 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. This articulated joint makes the heavy building appear to hover weightlessly above the ground plane. The 10 foot high building base seems mono-lithic, 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 2 inch wide wood siding that clads the entire first level.
The base braces the entire construction and allows the four main columns to cantilever vertically for the next 20 feet without additional bracing. Despite the massiveness of these columns, structural calculations indicate that the roof of the chapel would only sway up to 2 inches in a 100-year storm.
The 30 foot high chapel tower, as seen from the exterior, appears diaphanous and permeable. Louvers cladding the upper portion of the tower are mounted incrementally further from one another as they rise in relation to the solid, enveloping base. This calibration of enclosure makes the tower appear to be expand-ing in height, and resulting in a remarkable play of light and shadow as one moves around the building. A parabolic geometry appears though a moiré affect the louvers create when the tower is seen diagonally. This openness, however, is not perceptible from the interior of the chapel. From inside, the distance be-tween the louvers seems to be consistent, collapsing the perspective space. The volume of the tower ap-pears as a completely closed volume – a silent, inward looking space of reflection, infiltrated only by an ever-changing body of light. The distortion of perspective transforms the volume into an abstract body that is simultaneously intimate and limitless.
Epilogue
In many American universities, an apprenticeship is not required for a diploma in Architecture. The peda-gogical approach of the IIT Advanced Design/Build Studio attempts to connect the head and the hand. The confrontation with the entire architectural process - from the design sketch to the ribbon-cutting ceremony - provides students with a practical experience that both parallels and contrasts their acquired academic knowledge.
This project achieved all the desired goals. It created a positive resonance in the all of the participating mu-nicipalities where diverse groups collaborated to create something not possible separately. Cultural and religious differences were bridged, new friendships were forged, and a chapel was built.
