The Chapel
Three Bridges Life Care Community
Santa Rosa, CA
Project Designer Stone Marraccini Patterson
The meditation chapel at the west end of the Care Center is a spiritual place for reflection. Here elements of spirituality common to most beliefs, light, water, air, and symbols of nature (the tree), are incorporated. One enters through an outdoor ante room made of stone walls. Inside the chapel, two walls are made of stone and two of glass block with clear glazing at the top separating the walls from the roof. The glass block provides natural light to the indoors, while obscuring vision beyond from both inside and outside. Additional clear glass strips at the bottom of the glass block walls intersect a pool of water and provides a visual link to the outdoors from within. Off-centered within each room is a column structure, like a branching tree, that supports each of the two roofs in an embrace.