Wooden chapel in the wood
Wooden chapel in the wood

Meditative chapel in the French Alps. A sensory experience with a contrast of lights and shadows

Atelier Poem wins the international architecture competition "Le festival des cabanes" thanks to the project "Chaper of tears", a meditative wooden chapel located in a UNESCO heritage site near Lake Annecy, in Saint-Ferréol

With the aim of maximizing the use of economic resources, respecting the dimensional constraints of the competition announcement and using a single material, wood, the structure is constructed by both the designers themselves and by some volunteers

Wooden chapel in the wood

The building finds its own dimension thanks to the interaction with nature. Through the sensory experience that the visitor feels inside the chapel, they are stimulated to find their own way of being and interacting with the space in a contrast of light and shadow

Wooden chapel in the wood

Architecturally, the chapel looks like a parallelepiped that is tall and narrow and cut longitudinally in the central part, almost as if the nearby stream had eroded the material during its course. An opening frames the view of the nearby waterfall

Wooden chapel in the wood

The long sides are blank and parallel to the stream and are marked by a scansion of wooden elements of different thickness. The structure is completely made of spruce wood: the outer shell made of burnt wood planks is more durable and hydrophobic and contrasts with the interior where the wood remains natural

Wooden chapel in the wood

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