Our Chapel and "Liturgical East"

(Brendan)

Molly has mentioned, and I have mentioned, on previous posts that one of the requests we gave my brother at the beginning of this whole process was that our chapel face East, as a simple way of uniting it to Church tradition. Why would one want to have a chapel (or a church) face East? This link has a thorough, yet quick, explanation. It's interesting reading.

I was most interested in the comments of some of the early Church fathers in regard to the value of facing East during prayer. Some of the more salient quotes:

Tertullian informs us that Christian churches are "always" oriented "towards the light."

Origen asserts that the direction of the rising sun obviously indicates that we ought to pray inclining in that direction, an act which symbolizes the soul looking toward the rising of the true light, the Sun of Justice, Jesus Christ.

St. John Damascene says that, while waiting for the coming of the Lord, "we adore him facing East", for that is the tradition passed down to us from the Apostles. Other Church fathers who confirm this usage are Clement of Alexandria, Saint Basil, and Saint Augustine.

I dispense with any attempt at intellectualism and just say, "way cool." With such a historical legacy of facing East, this was something that we had to try to work into our home. In fact, beyond the historical legacy, with the knowledge of the liturgical basis for prayer toward the rising sun, as Christ is our true light and the light of the world, I think this will really add to our prayer lives in the chapel (I know it will for me).

Though Scheme A and Scheme B accomplish the desire for the chapel to face East exactly, Scheme C was a little different. Here's a reminder of how the chapels look in each scheme, with straight left being North, as shown with the little circle to the side in each case:
You kind of feel like reaching into the Scheme C diagram, grabbing the chapel, and twisting it just a little to get it exactly East. And if were going to have the chapel face East, it might as well be exact (any engineer knows there's always some tolerance, but I won't go there). So, we did tell my brother we'd like to have the chapel in Scheme C rotated slightly, and he didn't see any problem with this. In fact, as this point we thought that it may be a nice touch to have a short hallway connect to the chapel so that it could be rotated effectively AND add to the feeling of the uniqueness of the space and drama as you enter it. One commenter on the previous post actually came up with the same idea independently. We'll see what happens, the design modifications continue as we speak (or you read).

Wrap-Up of Conceptual Schemes

(Brendan)

If you haven't voted in the poll, here's the posts on Scheme A, Scheme B, and Scheme C. It will be interesting for us to see the results!

They'll be just a couple goals of this post: first, to briefly summarize some notes on the schemes (which will probably include a few we haven't mentioned yet), and second, to show a few more images that my brother presented with the schemes that give a preview of the direction of the materiality of the outside of the home.

When we were finished going through all three of the schemes, Molly and I sat down and typed up a list of general notes for my brother (applying to any of the schemes) and a list of likes and dislikes for each scheme. Molly and I have already gone over most of the likes/dislikes of each scheme in the posts. As far as general notes, some that we came up with (which aren't in any order) are:

• There needs to be a pantry of some sort in the kitchen area
• We're unsure of how a play area for the kids will fit in (where will their playthings go?)
• Needs to be more thought about where a TV would go - not in the Family Room, not in a high traffic area, not near the entry... there should be an "act of the will" necessary to watch TV for a specific reason
• Kids' rooms design is too rigid currently, we'd like to have the ability to move things around and rearrange
• Upper space of garage would be good for storage if designed properly
• Kitchen must be nearer to the garage, and near to dining areas
• The laundry area needs to be a room, and it needs to be on the upper floor by all of the bedrooms
• Would prefer Master Bedroom in proximity to the kids' bedrooms
• The nursery should always be adjacent to the Master Bedroom, with a door in between (in this case, the "nursery" is where the youngest child sleeps)

My brother has been working with these notes and suggestions for a few weeks now, along with getting some idea of the relative expense of each of the schemes, in order to refine the design.

As far as design directions for the materials on the outside of the home, my brother presented a few images that scoped out some directions in that regard. First. you may have noticed a few things from the side elevations of the schemes, such as that there may be some use of vertically oriented wood. I like this idea because it's different from the norm, it recalls some native Minnesotan architecture (that I'll blog about soon), and I think it can assist with "verticality" in critical structures like the chapel. An example of this type of exterior is shown below:
This also a good example of melding a timeless design with a clean and uncluttered look, which is what I'm sure my brother gravitates towards and we like as well. I'm not saying this is the way our home will look, but its a design direction. This doesn't scream "modernism," but it's refined and simple. The pitch of the roof is also similar to many of the side elevations in the schemes. One way of having an uncluttered design is to get rid of gutters. My brother brought this up, and commented that "If a house has gutters, that's a sign that the architect didn't do his or her job," at least regarding the details (it also assumes an architect designed the home at all, which is a big assumption). A skilled architect can design in water drainage to specific areas, where water can be captured by landscaped features or routed away from the home (or dispersed). And the end result is a much less cluttered exterior.

One item you may remember me mentioning in the original post on Scheme A, is that we have to adhere to certain architectural covenants of the neighborhood, one specifically being that at least 30% of the front facade of the home must be made up of materials such as brick or stone. You can see some of the influence of this next picture on the integration of the brick wall in Scheme A, and as an example of how this material covenant might be gracefully accomplished:
Here again you can see the vertically oriented wood, now melded with a brick exterior. And also again you see a more timeless design that still incorporated an uncluttered, clean, and simple feel. And also, no gutters :-) The snow is totally Minnesota in this picture, the mountains... not so much (we can't have it all here in God's country!).

One final note, not related to exterior design, is a pic that my brother showed us as providing him inspiration for the doors for our chapel:
I remember Molly and I were both.... perplexed. After which he quickly clarified that he wasn't referring to the height of the doors, just that he thought they should be different from all of the other doors of the home, perhaps heavier and more substantial, to assist in the feeling that the chapel was a different space. This of course made lots of sense; at least we wouldn't need to work in 30-foot ceilings to accommodate these specific doors, along with a winch and steel cables to open them.

Last (but not least)... Scheme C

(Brendan)

As promised, we now present the third schematic concept, Scheme C. If you're coming into the presentation of the schemes late, here's Scheme A, Molly comments on Scheme A, and Scheme B. We didn't do a separate post on the likes and dislikes of Scheme B because I mentioned most of them in the post on Scheme B. In the end, many of the things we would change ended up being common to all three schemes, while the likes are more specific to each Scheme. I'll do a summary post after this one to try to tie it all together.

Alright, this time I'll present the overhead shot of Scheme C first, and here it is (click to enlarge)...
I present the overhead shot first because we've shown the schematic drawings of our home to a few friends and family in person, and every time we get to Scheme C, the reaction always is "whoa." As in, "whoa... this one looks really different." You can tell right away that Scheme C is pretty different than Schemes A and B simply by the angles within the home, and the fact that the separate spaces of the home are visible even from the outside (or overhead). Here's the organizational diagram:
Describing Scheme C as my brother did to us is pretty fun too. I was even able to generate the "give me a break" eye roll from my seminarian brother, Evan, when I said (cue sarcastic newscaster voice), "Now, in order to really understand the conceptual design of Scheme C, we need to take a little trip back to Hadrian's Villa in ancient Rome..." Hadrian's Villa, on the Eastern outskirts of Rome, was built by the Emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century. It's widely studied in architecture because of the way the architect used the topography of the land to design the entire complex. The complex is oriented along a series of axes that naturally follow the flow of the land and take advantage of the views available. Here's an image (click to enlarge):
And here's a quote from Sir Banister Fletcher in his "History of Architecture,":

Walking around it today, it is still possible to experience something of the variety of architectural forms and settings, and the skillful way in which Hadrian and his architect have contrived the meetings of the axes, the surprises that await the turning of a corner, and the vistas that open to view.

So the gist of Scheme C is that my brother employed the same principles that are evidenced in Hadrian's Villa in the design of the home. Spaces are oriented along linear axes that make the most sense in terms of flow of the home, and also which align with viewing axes of the wetlands. Here's the organization diagram depicting this, with the blue triangles representing the main views...
Here's the floor plan for Scheme C (rotated back 90 degrees, click to enlarge):
Just a note, the "wall" separating the master bedroom from the kids' bedrooms on the second level wouldn't really be there. My brother didn't have enough time to sketch in a connection between the two areas before he flew out to meet us. The area between the two areas is also actually a prime spot to have the laundry, instead of on the first floor.

There are quite a few differences in the floor plan of Scheme C as compared to Schemes A and B. First, an advantage over Scheme A is that the home is a little more centralized, allowing us to keep track of the kids while still being in a different area. Second, the entry of the home is a lot more developed than both Scheme A or B. I think my brother has some great ideas on the entry. His concept was that of a "triptych," which for anyone who is familiar with Midieval and Rennaissance painting is a familiar term. A triptych is a three-paneled painting (or a relief sculpture), where each panel is usually held together by hinges. These works of art were often used in churches as altarpieces or in side-chapels. An example of one of the more famous triptychs is shown below, "The Decent from the Cross," by Peter Paul Rubens (ca. 1614):
So my brother's concept was that as you approach the entry of the home, the door (containing a window) and two angled windows on either side of the door would form a type of triptych, with each "panel" offering a preview of the inner life of the home. The left-hand window would be oriented to be directly in-line with the chapel, the right-hand window would be directly in-line with a view all the way through the home and out to the wetland, and the center window (door) would view a sitting area as a way of welcoming guests into the life of the family. Here's a schematic below where I illustrate this concept:
Another difference in Scheme C was the way the homeschool area was designed. This time, the homeschool was completely integrated into the kitchen, which is a concept that seemed interesting at first, but in the end we decided we didn't like this arrangement (having all the children at a linearly oriented table with no defined space or working area seemed to encourage clutter).
Of course you may have noticed that you couldn't get any further away from the garage if you were standing in the kitchen, so the whole kitchen would have to be moved to a different place, closer to the garage.

One cool aspect of the design of Scheme C was actually the garage. It's hard to notice from the floor plan, but the garage is designed in a pass-through arrangement, with the intent of having two garage doors (one on either side).
Again thinking independent of cost, this would be cool because we're going to end up having a big van some day, and never having to back out would be a good thing safety-wise and annoyance-wise.

Having just mentioned cost, that is one factor that is a big unknown with Scheme C. On the face of it, it would seem like Scheme C would be the most expensive of the three schemes. It has the most roof, the most exterior surface area, and it's unclear whether the angles themselves would add to the cost (not to mention the garage design, though that seems like it would just be the added cost of another garage door). My brother is currently working out the "costing" of the three schemes, at least an arrangement of most expensive scheme to least expensive scheme and some general magnitudes between the three, and so he will be providing this guidance soon.

Here's the side elevations of Scheme C (click to enlarge):
What can be seen more easily from the elevations is that the design is to communicate that, again, there is something very different about the home, as well as to communicate that there are many different aspects to family life inside (by the multiple visible "buildings"). In fact, the design almost seems like a small "village" from the outside.

There you have the last of the three Schemes! Our task now was to consolidate what we liked and didn't like about each Scheme, and pick one as the best starting point for the formal design of the home (while also trying to incorporate elements that we liked from each of the three schemes).

Let us know any comments/ideas, and don't forget to participate in the poll in the upper right of the blog!

Scheme B

(Brendan)

In case you are wondering what "Scheme B" is, go here to read the post on the conceptual drawings my brother has prepared.

Without further adieu, I'll attempt go through Scheme B in the same order of presentation for Scheme A. First is the overall organization diagram for Scheme B:
The defining theme of Scheme B is "overlapping spaces." Each space is designed so that it "bleeds" into the spaces next to it, to eliminate the feeling of each room as a box, and to increase the integration of the home. This organization is a lot more compact as compared to Scheme A.

Here's how this scheme looks from above, in a birds-eye view. The home is rotated 90-degrees from the organization diagram (up/down is North/South, click to enlarge)...

The main views to the wetland areas have again been taken into account in the design, as shown below:
Here's the floor plan for Scheme B (rotated back 90-degrees, click to enlarge):
Again, the R4 and R5 labels I placed there to denote where two virtual rendering images were generated (we'll get to those below). From the floor plan you can see the major organizational differences with Scheme A. This time the chapel is in the center of the home, actually sharing walls with adjacent rooms. Another difference is that the master bedroom is upstairs, on the same level as the boys' and girls' bedrooms. As Molly noted in her post on Scheme A, this is the arrangement we prefer so that, while still having some level of seclusion, we are near the kids during the nighttime. A further difference here is that the patio is a lot more scaled back, though still oriented to take advantage of the views available. One big thing that would still have to be changed is that the kitchen is too far from the garage.

One thing you may notice is the interesting shape of the walls of the chapel. My brother got that inspiration from looking at typical floor plans for basilicas, such as the one shown below, left (a zoomed-in pic of the chapel floor plan is at right):

The main idea he was interested in here was the various undulations of the sides of the nave, which are there to provide for side chapels for devotions to saints. Taking this theme into account, my brother worked something similar into the chapel design for Scheme B, knowing that we had hoped for defined places we could use as almost mini-side chapels. The renderings depict this design a lot more clearly. Here's a rendering if you were standing in the school room next to the chapel (click to enlarge):

I like this not only for places for statues and other artwork, it sets apart the chapel from the rest of the home even though it is integrated into the center of the home. Natural light adds transcendence as it filters down from above in each of the "side chapels." One other thing to note about the rendering above is you can see a bookshelf jutting into the school room area. This is one way of having the spaces bleed together and integrate.

Below is another rendering, from the opposite side of the chapel (click to enlarge):
From this side you see one aspect of this design we did not like, which is a "pass-through" walking area that goes through the back part of the chapel. We didn't want the importance of that room to be diminished by eventually using the back of the chapel as a hallway. It also encourages kids to run wildly through there (again, thinking Aidan here) and that is another thing we don't want.

Here are the side elevations for Scheme B (click to enlarge):
I really like the East elevation (which is the front facade of the home, facing the street). One thing my brother noted about the multiple windows on the upper level (each with a little dormer) was that this was a visual way of communicating to the outside viewer that there are a lot of children in the home (at first he said "the number of children in the home," after which we pointed out that it's not likely that we'll have exactly 6 kids).

There you have Scheme B. Compared to Scheme A, it's a fairly different take on accomplishing the same goals we are looking for.

Scheme A: Likes and Dislikes

(Molly)

After we had our initial meeting with my brother-in-law, Brendan and I sat down to discuss what we considered to be the pros and cons of each scheme. There were elements of each scheme that we liked and others that we knew right away wouldn’t work for our family. Overall, though, we were overwhelmed by the possibilities because neither of us had been able to really picture anything concrete in our minds.

We love the position of the chapel in this scheme. Its location on the property (jutting out from the trees), that it is facing the east (Brendan will comment on this specifically later), and the fact that it was somewhat “set apart” from the hub of the home were all attractive to us.

One of our favorite aspects of Scheme A is the way the building and grounds uses the natural flow of the land. The landscaping is designed with a kind of courtyard area in the front and a small, natural stairway towards the wetland area. We also loved the way that the patio was accessible from many areas of the home.

We were certain that we would want the kitchen and school room within immediate reach of one another as I naturally spend a large amount of time in the kitchen and that to prevent the kids from doing their schoolwork and sprawling out on the kitchen table, it would need to be nearby. Scheme A made this a reality.

Although we at first liked the idea of the Master Bedroom being sort of “set apart” from the children’s bedroom (aka: peace and quiet) we also realized it wouldn’t be conducive to the way we see our family interacting at night and in the early morning. Often we are up in the night, even with the older children, and we want the kids to feel like they could easily approach our room when they needed us. Also, having accessibility to their bedrooms makes morning and evening preparation much easier. So, the thought of a few moments of rest in the evening, with our own private entrance to the patio, were left behind in the dust….

On a more practical side, it was clear that the laundry room should be an upper-level room (rather than a sort of walk-way in the entrance by the garage) to make all aspects of laundry (a monumental task with only four children -- and we see that number growing) much easier! Also, in all of the schemes the garage was too far away from the kitchen area. Since we knew that the garage would be our main entrance to the house and that our kitchen is the place that we dump a lot of our things (namely, groceries) it would be important to not have to trudge through the home with loads of bags.

As I tried to imagine the family moving about the home as it was laid out in this scheme, it wasn’t difficult to see the following situation occurring on a regular basis: I would be in one area of the home attempting to quickly complete a task (near the current laundry area, perhaps) and suddenly I would hear (as I often do these days) a shrill screaming sound from one of the children who is located in the family room. Upon the noise I would waddle (I’m hugely pregnant in this story) as quickly as I could—to the right, then a left, still waddling, tripping over a toy, to the right, still going….until I finally reached the family room where the action was (and likely too out-of-time and out-of-breath) to deal with the situation at hand. It might be okay every once in a while because Clara often takes charge in my absence, but generally this could be an obstacle. When I imagined this situation (and several others) it became difficult for me to see Scheme A as a practical layout (even though at first glance it was our favorite scheme, but more on that later).

These are just a few thoughts on our discussion of Scheme A. We welcome our readers’ comments as well!

At last... the first conceptual drawings of our home!

(Brendan)

Okay, drum roll please.... finally it's time to present and discuss the first conceptual drawings of our home! It's taken a while to work up to this point; I had to make sure I had provided all of the background and set the stage for all that has gone in, and will go into, this project. Before launching into the concepts, I also want to bring us all back to the purpose of this blog. We truly have felt the movement of the Holy Spirit in this endeavor (more posts to come on that), and that includes telling others who may be so led as to design or transform their homes to foster the family as the "domestic Church". Or, perhaps this blog and our family's struggle to live for Christ in everything we do may inspire and support other families in the same struggle. However the Lord wants to use us and this project, we are overjoyed. May the will of the Lord be done in all things, and we totally submit ourselves to whatever God has for us. As our Lord so eloquently explained in the Gospel this past Sunday, we desire only to grow rich in the things that matter to God, and this home must only come to fruition if it plays a part in achieving that end.

Conceptual Design Process

I've posted recently (here and here) about how we provided my brother with some of the information he needed to get started on the conceptual design of the home. These posts were done partly to give enough background information for when we finally got to explaining the first conceptual drawings, but also partly to give insight to the architectural design process for those who may be interested (I know I had no clue before getting into all this). My brother took that information and worked for 3-4 months (remember, he works full-time at an architecture firm, so this is all in addition to his normal work) to create three separate conceptual designs of the home. We told him it was okay to start with just one, but he insisted that he could get three different ones done (and we are so glad he did, as it has added so much to our discussions). I also had told him that he didn't need to fly back here to present the concepts, I was sure we could just talk on the phone and review on the computer, but again, he insisted on flying back to meet in person (and, again, we are so glad he did). There's much more to be gained by meeting in person early in the design process, and in the end this will be a much better home for it.

So, early in July, just 5 weeks ago now, my brother flew out to visit us to present the concepts. They are entitled.... (hushed silence, egregiously long American Idol-like pause).... "Scheme A," "Scheme B," and.... (wait for it)... "Scheme C." (wild, roaring applause, people in the front row screaming and weeping).

Before I get into it, a few random notes:

• The exterior of the home has not really been developed in any way. This includes "materiality," as my brother would say, which is the materials of the exterior of the home.
• We have only one neighborhood covenant that seems to be non-negotiable with the architecture committee of the development (there's a committee of people who are involved in organizing the development and selling the lots, and they must be presented the final drawings for approval -- though none of them are architects, a little weird). This covenant states that at least 30% of the front facade of the home must be made of brick, stone, or other natural materials. There are other covenants, but most you can petition for an exception if it comes up as a problem.
• I am trying to represent my brother's ideas here; all this is his own product that I am attempting to explain in my own words.
  

Because I pride myself in logic, we will devote this first post to Scheme A.

Scheme A

Here we go, let's start with the overall organization diagram first...
This kind of shows the main areas of the home, and their functions. Scheme A is a design that has different "wings" devoted to different functions of the family. "Entertaining Space" should be taken with a grain of salt, since we're not big entertainers. It basically means that's where the formal dining room would be and a sitting area for conversing with guests.

Here's how this scheme looks from above, in a birds-eye view. The home is rotated 90-degrees from the organization diagram (up/down is North/South, click to enlarge)...
Just as a reminder, the main views to the wetland area from where the home will be built are shown below...
And my brother has incorporated those views into the design of the home, schematically depicted here (with the triangles depicting the views)...

Here's the actual floor plan (rotated back 90-degrees, click to enlarge)...
The R1, R2, and R3 labels I added are for three virtual renderings that my brother modeled so that we could get a picture of what it might look like. The first rendering (R1) is if you were standing in the dining room and looking East, across the patio out to the wetland. You can see the chapel further out, and its height or verticality compared to the rest of the home. (Click to enlarge)
The trees, etc. are actual pictures that my brother took in Winter of our land, which he incorporated into the renderings (cool, huh?). Here you also see the floor-to-ceiling windows that we had discussed previously.

The second rendering (R2) is if you were standing in the family room, near the chapel, looking diagonal across the fireplace and patio. (Click to enlarge)
Before I get to the third rendering, you may notice a few big things that we wanted incorporated into the design. The first is having one girls bedroom and one boys bedroom (almost dorm-style bedrooms). We don't think it's the best idea for family interaction, as well as for practice in virtue, for children to have their own bedrooms. I didn't have my own room when I grew up (with my two brothers); I loved sharing an attic with my brothers. Right now we have two boys and two girls, with a desire to grow our family. For this home to be "modular" and accomodate a growing family, this style of bedrooms is almost a necessity, as you have two space that you can constantly reconfigure. So the third rendering (R3) is a view of the boys' bedroom as designed in this scheme... (click to enlarge)...
Here are the side elevations of Scheme A, keeping in mind that the materials and details of the outside of the home have not been developed fully (click to enlarge).
As you can see, this will be a very different looking home, which is what we want. We want there to be some visual cue from the outside that something different is going on in this home. One thing you can notice is a brick wall that both connects with the facade of the home and extends past it to form a couryard area and a retaining wall with steps down to the wetland area. This kind of leads your eyes along sitelines past the home.

Well, there you have Scheme A. This post is getting so long, that I will leave a discussion of what we specifically liked about this scheme, and what we didn't like, for another post. Until that time, you could probably try to guess what we liked and didn't like. Feel free to post a comment on that or anything else!

A "Pièce de Résistance" for Our Chapel

(Brendan)

I've posted recently about my desire to create Catholic art for our chapel, and for the rest of our home as well, and that's something I am very excited about doing. However, the art that I am and will be creating is drawings and paintings. Another essential form of art for chapels and churches, in my opinion, is sculpture. For some reason, sculpture is incredibly powerful as a representational art form, probably because of the three-dimensional physical nature of the sculpture. If the subject is a human being, we see the person being depicted as frozen in time, and yet the three-dimensional nature makes the person seem almost real. For me, this art form can be incredibly powerful when depicting the saints and their lives on Earth. Asking for intercessory prayer from a saint is so much more easily done when I can see a representation of that person, almost like it's easier to remember a loved one if we have a picture of that person. And there's much more to be said about the artistry of sculpture, the methods of capturing a feeling of movement, the classical roots of the human form, the use of the golden ratio, the use of contrapposto pose, the oversizing of parts or lengths of the body to communicate elegance or heroism, just to name few. Sculpture is truly fascinating.

Now, when I saw Duncan Stroik's design for Holy Family chapel for a private residence, one of things I liked the most was the variety of sculpture included. An example was a sculpture that was done of St. Joseph, as shown at right. I would love to have piece of sculpture be an artistic centerpiece of our chapel, and so of course, I wondered: A) How much would a piece of sculpture like that cost?, and B) Where did they get their sculpture? Only one thing to do, e-mail Duncan Stroik. So I did. Mr. Stroik graciously e-mailed me back, and among other suggestions for our chapel (regarding materials, guidelines, etc.) the answer on sculpture was:

Most of the statues we use in our projects are custom from Italy. We find that there are very few sculptors in this country that can match their quality. Custom statues can be 20-30K. The Italians also make what I will call stock statues--still made from marble but are a 'stock' pose. These run about 10K. Anthony Visco, from Philadelphia, is a wonderful Catholic artist in this country and we work with him quite frequently.

Yikes! Wow, $20,000-$30,000 for a custom piece of sculpture. After having slowly recovered my senses from this revelation, I read the last sentence again and decided to try to look up who this Anthony Visco guy was. What I found was someone who is easily the premier Catholic artist in the United States.

In order to understand the level of proficiency and artistry of Anthony Visco, you really have to visit his website and see for yourself. Here are examples of his sculpture, painting, reliefs, and drawing (click each to enlarge):

Truly an amazing artist. Here's more info as well:

• An interview with the artist
• Article: "The Anatomy of Sacred Art, Part I: Prescence, Witness, Transcendence," by Anthony Visco
• Article: "The Anatomy of Sacred Art, Part II: Ad quid venisti? Quo Vadimus? Or, can we still discover the New World?", by Anthony Visco

Now, one link I was particularly interested in was a link on his front page entitled, "A Prelude to Your Commission." Of course I read this, and the wheels started turning (Wow!, Imagine a custom commissioned, one-of-a-kind piece of sculpture by Anthony Visco in our chapel!), and figured, "what the heck," and e-mailed him a proposal. Certainly we cannot afford 20-30K for a piece of sculpture, but maybe something much less, along the lines of a used car. I've paid off used cars before, over 4 or 5 years, and this may be worth it (at least for consideration).

Mr. Visco, just like Mr. Stroik, graciously returned my e-mail, with the following response:

Dear Mr. Koop,

Thank you for your interest in my work but moreover thank you for your desire bringing your children closer to Christ in your home.

You have already been very helpful in giving me two of the three things I would have asked: a sense of calendar and a budget. The third component, the image, is what I would need next to best serve you and your family. I would be more than happy to guide you as best I can to serve the devotional needs of your family chapel.

First, is there any particular image of Christ, or the Blessed Virgin, or perhaps the chapel is under the patronage of a certain saint or a blessed? Could you give me some idea how the work would function? Is it a votive or devotional work to be apart from the sanctuary? Since the chapel is indoors, our choices for material are more varied and this, as opposed to the need for an outdoor material such as bronze (the most costly), gives us greater options. Good strong plaster cements when given a patina can look as though bronze. I will include an example of a plaster that I did of Saint Nicolas of Tolentine for the National Shrine of Saint Rita of Cascia. It is made in plaster with a bronze patina.
Please feel free to call and discuss your thoughts as they come about. In the meantime, I pray the Holy Spirit guides us to do the Will of the Father in that it best serve Christ's church on earth.

Pax et bonum,

Anthony Visco

Atelier for the Scared Arts
Anthony Visco, Director
1426 Christian Street
Philadelphia PA 19146-2221
Tel. 267.455.0705

Awesome! Certainly it's something we're still considering and praying about, but we'd like to make it happen. And in some sense, if we're going to make it happen, then we'd like to include a defined place for the sculpture in the chapel design. And, we also need to choose a patronage for the chapel (a saint or other devotion). Certainly exciting to think about!

Concepts in Pictures

(Brendan)

After going through the Q&A process that I detailed in my last post, my brother put together a packet of pictures of different spaces to add a visual aspect to our discussions. The packet was divided up into multiple areas of focus: Interior/Exterior Spaces, Interior Spaces, Exterior Spaces, and Sacred Spaces. My brother put a lot of work into gather lots of images for us to consider, wanting not only to know what we liked, but also what we specifically did not like. I'll go through some of the images in each category and point out the best examples we liked (and I'll point out some that we disliked at the end).

Interior/Exterior Spaces
The key with these examples for us is that they do a great job of integrating, almost seamlessly, the indoors and outdoors.

We liked the space above because a "sitting room" is very important to us, and this seemed to be a great place to read a book or just look outside, and the patio is integrated almost as an extension of the room. The windows, floor to ceiling, are also very appealing and give that sense that the outdoors is integrated with the home (this of course is disregarding any thought of what such windows might cost!).

This is just another example of making the transition to the outdoors seamless.

Interior Spaces
Our general theme with interior spaces that we liked was the ability to see into multiple areas at once, which is a plus for a large family like we hope to have (we have 4 children now, and we say we hope to have a "large" family in that we think the Lord has many more for us, what blessings!). One always needs to keep track of which child is spilling what where, and what other child is drawing on their arm with a marker in a different place. Good sitelines to time-out corners are also a plus. At any rate, we like a balance between an "open" flow of rooms and enough "closed" areas for some privacy in conversation or reading.

Here we liked that there is a connection between all of the spaces, but not necessarily a totally open and disorganized space. You almost get a "preview" of other areas when you look in any direction, but not the whole thing. Also, it's nice to be able to look outside from the kitchen to keep tabs on which child is whacking which other child with a long stick, and which other child is skinning whatever body part.

Here was a room that we liked mostly because it has a view of trees that will probably be very similar to our own with the amount of trees we have on the buildable portion of our land. The floor-to-ceiling windows are again a nice touch.

This space is obviously pretty simplistic due to lack of furnishings, but we felt that the trees adjacent to the home were almost part of the design of the room.

Exterior Spaces

It's not always intuitive to think of an "exterior space," but good architectural design will incorporate external spaces, whether physical or implied, in the overall design plan. The outdoors areas of our site are important to us since the views of the wetlands and the surrounding trees and vegetation are quite striking. And plus, hey, we don't want to spend all of our time indoors.

This design is really quite well done, including a series of outdoor spaces and views beyond. I requested that the ocean be included in our view, and so I think my brother is working on that.

I really liked this because it shows that the structure blurs the indoor/outdoor lines. I also like the simple and organized landscaping. Our current home has WAY too much landscaping (probably another post in itself) and I don't want to continue to be a slave to my yard.

As far as spaces we did not like in all of these categories, the next image sums it up best.

In a word, minimalism. I'm sure I don't know if that's a misuse of an official architectural term, but you get the point by looking at this image. Use of exposed concrete, an industrial-type feel, a cold functionalism, these are things that don't mirror or communicate the reality of our family in any way. It's good that a variety of spaces were included in this packet of pictures so that we could clarify what we wouldn't like.

Sacred Spaces
Here, we didn't really see much that we thought was moving in the very specific direction we want our chapel to go. Focusing on the five essential elements of a good, Catholic sacred space is certainly the starting point of any design of the chapel, and so we didn't see any spaces that were included that met the majority of these elements. Here's a few spaces that we did not like.

Verticality, yes. Iconography, transcendence, formality, hierarchy... no. This does conjure up images of alien spaceships for some reason though.

This I guess is a Quaker chapel or meeting room, but I think in general the seating arrangement is not what we want (we would like seating in the chapel to be oriented towards an altar area - i.e hierarchy), and this, to me, kind of seemed like an experimentation in architectural novelty.

This is "cold" in feeling, and kind of bland and minimalistic (as were the previous two spaces).

It's certainly not that we want the chapel to be totally disconnected in feel from the rest of the home; in fact, that's the opposite of what we want. However, the essential elements need to be there.

Going through the images and giving feedback really started us thinking about the more detailed aspects of home design, and provided a great foundation for my brother to start conceptual schematics of the home. Soon to come!

Any thoughts or comments are welcome!