Detail of the project ed. 2024

capil­la-rlj / Mexico

Design­er	Ricar­do Yslas Gamez
Loca­tion	San Juan Cos­alá, México
Nation	Mex­i­co
Design Team	Arq Ricar­do Yslas Gamez, arq. Ale­jan­dro Bey­er Con­tr­eras, Arq. Jacobo Díaz Castil­lo, Arq. Gus­ta­vo Ortiz Aguas, Arq. Jor­dan de la Paz Hernán­dez, Ing. Ernesto Ramírez Salazar
Year	2016
Pho­to credits	Jaime Navar­ro

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

It is char­ac­ter­ized by the use of exposed con­crete and steel as dom­i­nant mate­ri­als, con­trast­ing with nat­ur­al mate­ri­als such as wood, quar­ry and stone from the region.

The project fol­lows a baroque pat­tern in the access route that allows it to play with the light and the sur­prise of the patio behind the altar. Accom­pa­ny­ing this intel­li­gent use of routes is the inter­est­ing design of the roof, with its dif­fer­ent folds and its curved tile finish.



Locat­ed in the town of San Juan Cos­alá, Jalis­co, Capil­la RLJ con­sists of a reli­gious build­ing that is part of the mas­ter plan for an events and relax­ation com­plex.

The ini­tial approach was to inte­grate the chapel into its imme­di­ate con­text, adapt­ing to the topog­ra­phy of the site and respect­ing the exist­ing veg­e­ta­tion. The use of appar­ent mate­ri­als defines the project, with exposed con­crete and steel being the dom­i­nant mate­ri­als, con­trast­ing with nat­ur­al mate­ri­als such as wood, quar­ry and stone from the region.  

Con­sid­er­ing the use of the project, inte­gra­tion into the social con­text was sought, so the main access was pro­ject­ed onto the pub­lic road; gen­er­at­ing the inclu­sion of the com­mu­ni­ty and vis­i­tors, despite being locat­ed with­in a pri­vate prop­er­ty.

Out­side, there is an access patio that func­tions as an atri­um, made up main­ly of carved stone, which in turn gives access to the dress­ing tables, the sac­risty and the inte­ri­or of the chapel. This meet­ing space is sur­round­ed by two sol­id ele­ments, cre­at­ing inter­est­ing visu­al end­ings towards the land­scape.

The main vol­ume is made up of two large con­crete walls and a steel struc­ture that shapes the roof. This ser­i­al struc­ture was designed as a two-sto­ry roof that changes its com­po­si­tion to a flat roof. The inte­ri­or is made up of an area with 12 bench­es with capac­i­ty for 72 atten­dees, a choir and the altar area.

The con­crete walls extend to accom­mo­date an open rear court­yard that pro­vides access to the under­ground mau­soleum, and the cen­ter con­tains a sus­pend­ed steel cross, which was designed and man­u­fac­tured by the firm. This patio ends at the back with a quar­ry wall with a geo­met­ric pat­tern that accen­tu­ates the depth of the space over which the cross-shaped sculp­tur­al ele­ment floats.

The objec­tive of the pro­pos­al was to cre­ate a wor­ship space with a mate­ri­al­i­ty and geom­e­try defined by the essen­tial ele­ments of a chapel, where the entry of nat­ur­al light and con­trast of tex­tures cre­ates a serene and emo­tion­al atmosphere.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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