Detail of the project ed. 2016

remote-out­­back-chapel / Lui­gi Rossel­li Architects

Design­er	Lui­gi Rosselli
Loca­tion	Far North West­ern Australia
Design Team	Lui­gi Rossel­li — Design Architects Kristi­na Sahle­strom — Lead Project Architect David Mitchell — Project Architect
Year	2014
Pho­to credits	Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects Remote Rammed Earth Chapel 001 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects Remote Rammed Earth Chapel 003 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects Remote Rammed Earth Chapel 004 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects Remote Rammed Earth Chapel 006 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects Remote Rammed Earth Chapel 007 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects Remote Rammed Earth Chapel 008 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects Remote Rammed Earth Chapel 009 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects Remote Rammed Earth Chapel 010 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects The Great Wall of WA 003 — Edward Birch Lui­gi Rossel­li Archi­tects The Great Wall of WA Con­struc­tion 006 — Lui­gi Rosselli

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The Mus­ter­ers’ Quar­ters Chapel is locat­ed in the rugged, hot and sun­burned land­scape of a remote cat­tle sta­tion in North West­ern Aus­tralia. An ancient sand dune arch­es around the back of a cat­tle sta­tion home­stead and dug into the dune are twelve accom­mo­da­tion apart­ments for tran­sient mus­ter­ing work­ers, which fol­low the crest of the dune and fan out towards the view of the white ghost gum trees scat­tered along the dis­tant riv­er bank. On the high­est point of the dune a Chapel dom­i­nates the Mus­ter­ers’ Quarters.

The Chapel is like a seashell; a sim­ple oval plan with a skewed con­i­cal Cor-Ten steel roof that pro­vides pro­tec­tion from the scorch­ing sun. The cone apex, trun­cat­ed at an ocu­lus open­ing, much like the Pan­theon of Rome, pro­vides a solar merid­i­an on the floor. A gold anodised alu­mini­um ceil­ing and a sacred verse inscribed on the ring beam of the roof are sub­tle spir­i­tu­al com­po­nents that do not attempt to rival the intrin­sic spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of the land­scape and the small fam­i­ly ceme­tery at the bot­tom of the hill. Though planned as a mul­ti-pur­­pose space, the chapel is prin­ci­pal­ly a place of wor­ship, imbibed with the sacred aura of the place, begin­ning with the indige­nous care­tak­ers of the site to the graves of the first set­tlers at the bot­tom of the hill. The aer­i­al view of this land­scape and the rammed earth zigzag­ging struc­tures are reminders of the abo­rig­i­nal tra­di­tion­al paint­ings and their rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the myth­i­cal his­to­ry of the land.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

BACK TO PROJECTS PAGE