Year: Spring 2018
Studio: Design 6
Professor: Johanna Reed
Location: San Antonio, Texas

Recognition: ISSUE:018

To reimagine what once was and to appreciate what currently is, the chapel “levitates” over the ruins of the original church of Mission Espada, San Antonio, one of the oldest pieces of Texas history. The building appears as a simple white mass floating in the air to be in harmony with the rest of the site. The structure of the building is held up by steel columns that are masked by a mirrored glass on the exterior to give off this floating effect. Upon entering the chapel, visitors are greeted with a splash of diffused rainbow colored lighting that paint the interior space as ornamentation. The space is meant to give visitors a beautiful, calming space for worship that emulates the dimensions of the original church, but a contemporary reinterpretation. The building then extends with the rest of the existing complex to form courtyard and meditation spaces under the same architectural language.