John Pawson has stacked up 144 tree trunks to create a space of rest and contemplation on a cycle route in southwest Germany.
Wooden Chapel is one of seven new rest stops commissioned by the Siegfried and Elfriede Denzel Foundation along a cycling path through the Bavarian Forest.
"The client wanted to provide sanctuary or contemplation space," said Pawson, unveiling the project at the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town last week. "He commissioned seven architects: six from Germany, and me."
Wooden Chapel comprises 144 stacked logs. Photo is by Eckhart Matthäus
With a brief to primarily use wood for construction, Pawson's design is based around the idea of keeping the material close to its natural state.
Trunks of Douglas fir were cut down into chunky rectilinear beams and stacked up, so as to look like "a pile of logs stacked up to dry". "It's just trunks of Douglas fir stacked on top of each other," Pawson explained. "There's a minimum of cuts, so everything is solid."
It is located on a cycling path through the Bavarian Forest. Photo is by Eckhart Matthäus
Contemplation spaces are a regular feature in the work of the London-based architectural designer ? a title he has to use, as he never completed his architectural studies. Among his best-known projects are the Nový Dv?r monastery and the St Moritz Church, both of which are also in Bavaria.
The Wooden Chapel is considerably simpler than these two projects, c...