Detail of the project ed. 2016

shonan-christ-church / Takeshi Hosa­ka architects

Design­er	Takeshi Hosaka
Loca­tion	Tsu­ji­do Higashikaigan2-12–36,Fujisawa,Kanagawa,JAPAN
Design Team	Takeshi Hosa­ka / Takeshi Hosa­ka architects Megu­mi Hosa­ka / Takeshi Hosa­ka architects
Year	2014
Pho­to credits	Koji Fujii Nacasa&Partners Inc

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

A protes­tant church stands at a rich green res­i­den­tial area which is 10-min­utes away from Shonan beach on foot. The chapel of the 50-year old church became too small and it was there­fore decid­ed that a new church would be con­struct­ed on a dif­fer­ent site. Church author­i­ties said that the pas­sages of the Bible are read and heard in ser­vice. There­fore, “We wish to have a chapel appro­pri­ate to give praise to the Lord. 

*Six roofs
The archi­tec­tur­al design was a one-sto­ried build­ing with a restrained height so that it could har­mo­nize in a low-rise res­i­den­tial area. It was aimed at cre­at­ing a space appro­pri­ate to prayer and wor­ship with the six curved sur­faced roofs at dif­fer­ent heights. This allows nat­ur­al light to pour down from the ceil­ing. It con­veys the mes­sage that six roofs rep­re­sent the six days of Cre­ation in the Bible gen­e­sis and Mass cel­e­brates the sev­enth day.

Direct sun­light / indi­rect light
Direct sun­light and indi­rect light are reg­u­lat­ed depend­ing on the time of the day.
At the time of ser­vice there was no direct expo­sure to sun­light, where­as the rest of the time there was. There­fore, this con­struc­tion was designed to receive an appro­pri­ate amount of indi­rect light dur­ing ser­vice time. So, light was sim­u­lat­ed using com­put­er soft­ware at inter­vals of 30 min­utes on the designed days dur­ing 12 months and manip­u­lat­ed depend­ing on the time of the day. There would be a space under a soft light at the time of ser­vice through­out the year. Towards the end of the ser­vice, direct sun­light begins to draw a ray of light on the wall sur­face. In the after­noon there is only one line of direct sun­light, and around 3 o’clock light comes in like a show­er, cre­at­ing a dynam­ic environment. 

* Ribs of sound and light
Uneven lon­gi­tu­di­nal ribs were carved at a ran­dom rhythm on the exposed RC con­crete wall of the chapel, and dark gray acoustic boards were placed between the ribs. A solu­tion to the require­ment was reached by achiev­ing bal­ance. This was pos­si­ble using con­cave acoust

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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