Wooden Chapel

Commissioned by a private foundation as one of seven wayside chapels along a cycle route, this small building joins a long tradition of chapels set as spiritual and architectural markers in the landscape. The shared brief asked for timber construction, a cross nearby and somewhere to sit, so that cyclists could take shelter, pause and reflect.

On a first visit to the site, the British architect decided that the chapel should be met as a found object at the threshold between forest and open ground, rather than as a conventional work of architecture. From some angles the mass looks like a stack of logs left to dry; from others, the careful placing of the timbers on a concrete plinth gives it the formality of sculpture.

Solid wood was the natural answer to the setting, and the timber was given the least possible treatment, drawing on the expertise of the Danish wood company Dinesen, a collaborator of many years. Openings cut into the envelope reveal the thickness of the walls, and a narrow entrance recalls the closeness of moving through dense woods.

Inside, light is kept deliberately low. Narrow clerestories along both sides let daylight filter down, so attention settles on two other sources: a raised cross of coloured glass set into the end wall, and a low unglazed opening that frames a view across the fields toward the spire of the nearby village church.

Since its blessing at the end of 2018, the timber has slowly bleached and silvered, faster on the faces open to the weather, while the sharp scent of resin inside has gradually mellowed.