Detail of the project ed. 2016

rib­bon-chapel / Hiroshi Naka­mu­ra & NAP

Design­er	Hiroshi Nakamura
Loca­tion	Hiroshi­ma, Japan
Design Team	Hiroshi Naka­mu­ra & NAP: Hiroshi Naka­mu­ra, Yasuhi­ro Otani, Takahi­ro Shi­ma­da*, Keisuke Minato* *: for­mer staff
Year	2014
Pho­to credits	[PHO­TO 1 EXTER­NAL] View­ing the dis­tant cityscape of Onomichi. By sub­tly peak­ing out from the dense trees, it becomes a sym­bol that har­mo­nizes with the sur­round­ing environment. [PHO­TO 2 EXTER­NAL] By join­ing two spi­ral stair­ways that sup­port one anoth­er, we cre­at­ed a free-stand­ing structure. [PHO­TO 3 EXTER­NAL] The building’s exte­ri­or is fin­ished in white-paint­ed upright wood pan­els, so as to deep­en its beau­ty as time pass­es. Each slim pan­el with 80mm width can be pli­able enough to be applied to its curv­ing wall. [PHO­TO 4 EXTER­NAL] The bride and groom climb sep­a­rate stair­ways to meet at the top, ask for heaven’s per­mis­sion to join as one, and declare their mar­riage. The sim­ple build­ing is com­posed only of paths. [PHO­TO 5 EXTER­NAL] It stands as a light­house for ships that pass by. [PHO­TO 1 INTER­NAL] Solemn sound echoes through the atri­um that extends towards the sky. [PHO­TO 2 INTER­NAL] The two climb­ing the sep­a­rate spi­rals pass each oth­er sev­er­al times. [PHO­TO 3 INTER­NAL] Near the top, the rib­bon high­er than the sur­round­ing trees, and the superb cityscape of Onomich and vast view of Seto Inland Sea begin to appear. [PHO­TO 4 INTER­NAL] Since the ceil­ing sur­face is three-dimen­­sion­al cur­va­ture, tita­ni­um zinc alloy was employed for its soft­ness and high resis­tance against salt dam­age. Scener­ies from the moun­tain to sea appear through the branches. [PHO­TO 5 INTER­NAL] Some lay­ers of spi­rals over­lap in the south­west side to mit­i­gate strong sun­light pen­e­tra­tion. The spi­rals can be seen in pure shape from the inte­ri­or due to the use of under­floor air con­di­tion­ing cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the foun­da­tion pit.

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Rib­bon Chapel 

The chapel in Onomichi, Hiroshi­ma, Japan, is mid­way on a hill enjoy­ing a beau­ti­ful panoram­ic view of the Seto Inland Sea. It is main­ly used for wed­dings by Pas­tors and wide­ly opens up to the pub­lic, con­tribut­ing to dis­sem­i­na­tion of the Chris­t­ian faith.
A sin­gle spi­ral is very unsta­ble. How­ev­er, by entwin­ing two spi­ral stair­ways, we real­ized a free-stand­ing build­ing of unprece­dent­ed com­po­si­tion and archi­tec­tural­ly embod­ied the act of mar­riage in a pure form.

The beau­ti­ful scener­ies of sur­round­ing islands could not be seen due to the abun­dant trees, but we did not want to cut down the trees to open up the views. We thought if the chapel stood as an inde­pen­dent object, then it would rather ruin the view. Instead we designed a chapel with view­ing plat­form by just thin­ning out the sur­round­ing trees, so that the chapel would stand as it peaks out from the mid­way of the mountain. 

Though the insta­bil­i­ty of the spi­ral makes it sway side to side and shake in the ver­ti­cal direc­tion, we cre­at­ed a free-stand­ing struc­ture by join­ing two spi­ral stair­ways that sup­port one anoth­er. Just as two lives go through twists and turns before unit­ing as one, the two spi­rals seam­less­ly con­nect at their 15.26m sum­mit to form a sin­gle rib­bon. Inside, the vir­gin road extends towards the pre-exist­ing sym­bol tree, and 80 seats are posi­tioned with views of the ocean through the trees and the altar that is watched over by them.

In the process of walk­ing the aisle, every step awak­ens mem­o­ries and emo­tions. The sim­ple build­ing is com­posed only of paths, along which scener­ies of ocean, moun­tains, sky, and dis­tant islands suc­ces­sive­ly appear and dis­ap­pear. Although it is only a small build­ing, we endeav­ored to accom­mo­date the emo­tions of the bride and groom and the thoughts of the cel­e­brants by extend­ing the aisle to a total length of 160m and expand­ing the range of experiences.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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