08 / 16CulturalDen Helder, Netherlands
A weathering-steel room for forty people in the dunes, beside a single concrete wall that holds the bell. · Built
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Facts
Stichting Duinkapel is a small foundation that holds services, weddings and funerals for the villages behind the dunes near Den Helder. Its previous chapel had been lost to damp. The new one had to seat forty people, survive the salt air without maintenance, and disturb as little of the dune as possible. It is 210 m² on a site of 1 400 m², designed in 2011 and finished in 2013.
We separated the two things a chapel does. A single concrete wall, 14 m tall and 600 mm thick, holds the bell and marks the place from across the dunes. Beside it, low and closed, is a weathering-steel room for forty people. From the dune path the wall comes first, and the room is only found when you reach the foot of it.
The plan (A-201) is a line and a rectangle. Holm Bridge & Shell set both on one concrete raft below the sand, so the wall steadies the room against the wind and the weight of the room anchors the foot of the wall.
The room is made of weathering-steel plate, welded into stiffened panels and left to rust. Inside, it is lined with nothing. Oak benches stand on a concrete floor, close enough to the walls that you can touch the steel from your seat. The plate was orange when the chapel opened. After ten winters by the sea it has settled to a deep, even brown that no longer runs onto the concrete.
The only window is above the altar wall, out of sight. Daylight falls down the end wall from a roof light that cannot be seen from any bench, and the rest of the room is dark. Section A–A (S-301) shows the angle that keeps the opening hidden. For evening services Lux Interval placed a single fitting in the same opening, so after dark the light still comes from the same place.
Two elements, each doing one thing completely: a wall for the bell and a room for forty people.
The chapel holds a service most Sundays and a handful of weddings each summer. The bell is rung by hand, by whoever from the foundation has the key that week. Marram grass has grown back to the walls, and from the beach the steel room has almost disappeared into the dune. That leaves the wall to do its job alone, which is what we intended. In winter, when there are no services, walkers on the dune path use the room to get out of the wind.
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Ground floor plan of Dune Chapel at 1:100. Walls in solid black (400 mm concrete), openings as breaks with glazing lines, structural grid lettered and numbered; spaces: chapel, porch, bell wall.
Drawing set · 4 sheets
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