Light

The objective of this project is to create a chapel on the campus of Farmingdale State College. The chapel is intended to be nondenominational; a place of prayer and worship for all, regardless or religious beliefs. The college believes that the creation of a spiritual space can be made through the utilization of light manipulation. The primary focus was to use curved surfaces and other techniques as a means of manipulating sunlight in a meaningful way.

Light Research & Past Precedents

Alvar Aalto - Seinäjoki Library

Seinäjoki library is consisted of two juxtaposed volumes, a rectangular shape which is intercepted in the south side by an irregular fan shape building that contains the book stacks, the main reading area and the lending desk. Inside this library, the connection to the surroundings is denied and only indirect and reflected light can enter the interior spaces.

Natural light enters the Seinäjoki Library from two directions: The north and south. The uniformity of the light is achieved by careful manipulation of the ceiling plane in order to diffuse or direct the light as desired.

Sunlight enters from the North-facing windows through a set of clerestory windows. These windows are raised up high, and the light that enters through them is redirected by a subtly sloped ceiling. This slope guides the north light deeper into the central space of the fan-shaped volume.

Windows that are facing the south are directly exposed to incoming sunlight. Aalto utilizes a semi-circular ceiling to diffuse and reflect daylight into the stacks below. This creates a “cloud” of light over the perimeter of the southern wall.

Contextual Analysis

Circulation

Functions

Spaces

Building Heights

Sun Angles

Spring

Fall

Summer

Winter

Site Selection & Sorting

E

W

S

I chose this location for the chapel site with careful consideration of the sun angles and the interaction with the public space. The site is able to be directly hit by all angles of the sun without adjacent buildings obfuscating any of the incoming light. The location of the site interacts with the public space created by Lupton Hall, Nold Hall, and Roosevelt Hall, and fills all of the edges facing into the Great Lawn. Additionally, this site choice would integrate well into pre-existing macro-vehicular and macro-pedestrian circulation. The mediation chapel will face the east and the memorial chapel will face the west, both of which are placed this way to capture moving light from sunrise to sunset. The main chapel will face the south, capturing the most direct sunlight during the day. It is also the most hierarchical space in the building.

Hierarchy

Main Chapel

Memorial Chapel

Meditation Chapel

Secular Space

Sorting of Spaces

Religious:

Main Chapel

Meditation Chapel

Memorial Chapel

Secular:

Conference Room

Library

Office Spaces

Restrooms

Connotations of Light

In this project, I wanted to utilize the light in a way that would invoke certain feelings beyond it's literal connotations. In order to do so, I considered what sort of feelings light might create in a person depending on which direction it came from. After some research, I decided on the following: