Industry News
Nicholas Burns nestles concrete chapel within grounds of Portuguese estate Architect Nicholas Burns has hidden a chapel made from concrete amongst trees and granite boulders on a large private estate in northern Portugal. Fittingly named Chapel and Meditation Room, the project was commissioned by the estate’s owners who wanted a space for both private and group reflection within the grounds. Australian-born and Bali-based architect Burns was given full rein on its design and location within the thirty-hectare site.
“The height was determined by the height of the trees growing in a few years and becoming taller, concealing the highest point of the building.”
Burns decided to build the chapel on a knoll bounded by gullies and covered in rocks and dense foliage, which grants it a protective and isolated feeling.
Burns chose concrete as the primary material for the Chapel and Meditation Room for its “plasticity”, which allowed him to achieve its continuous, sinuous form.
Its form responds directly to this setting, with a curving exterior that slots between the boulders and tree trunks. While minimising damage to nature, this is hoped to make the chapel appear as part of the landscape.
It also provides the building with a “neutral, consistent surface inside and out”, Burns said, which retains focus on the landscape.
“The idea that the landscape will grow around and envelope the building over time and become part of it,” Burns said. “The volumes of the various spaces were constrained by the location of the boulders and trees,” he continued. •4•
Photography is by Peter Bennetts.
