The World Architectural Festival was held last week in Singapore, and announced A21 studio's The Chapel to be the Building of the Year. The rainbow colored, shed-inspired structure was designed by the Vietnamese architecture firm with the goal of providing "a cheery venue for community gatherings in an area that severely lacks public spaces."
The 1,500-square-foot Chapel was presented among other projects from Richard Rogers, Rocco Yim, Julie Eizenberg, Enric Ruiz Geli and Peter Rich to a jury panel awarding designers for awards such as Small Project of the Year, Landscape of the Year, Future Project of the Year, The Colour Prize and the Wood Excellence Prize.
The A21 Studio space is located outside of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where the current estate status lacks communal centers for residents to enjoy and come together for work-related activities, celebrations and exhibitions. The steel frame and metal sheet construction has been reused for the Chapel from previous development projects.
Paul Finch, World Architecture Festival Program Director, said. "The judges felt this was a project that embraced history and modernity, and created a dialogue in the process. It has created maximum effect with minimum materials and has produced an unexpected change of pace in its urban content. The opportunity has been taken to recycle and rethink materials and site, and a series of design issues have been addressed which has produced a small project that makes a big statement. Colour and light have been deployed to put people at ease and the architect has found poetry in the mundane."
To view more photos of The Chapel and other winning projects of the World Architecture Festival, visit ArchDaily.com.
