Rwanda Chapel Competition

2019 | Conceptual
Rawanda

D&A Architects
Team: Ivor Daniel, Jessica Dyer, Patrick Surmon, Tim De Klerk

The Rwanda Chapel Competition proposed a small pilgrimage chapel set within a rural landscape, designed to establish a relationship between Catholic worship, the individual experience of faith, and the surrounding natural environment. The project is conceived as part of a broader communal route of pilgrimage, where the chapel becomes both destination and gathering point within a cultural and spiritual landscape.

The key constraint was to create a place of worship that is simultaneously sacred, communal and environmentally integrated, while remaining modest in scale and construction. The design also needed to respond to local climatic conditions, cultural traditions and the use of accessible materials, ensuring that the building could be realised through local craft and community participation.

The architectural response is based on a circular form, symbolising centralised sacred space and collective gathering, while referencing African vernacular spatial traditions. The chapel is partially embedded into the hillside, allowing the landscape to form a natural amphitheatre of grassed terraces and dry-stone retaining walls that accommodate both ritual and communal assembly. An exoskeletal structure supports a deep overhanging roof, providing shade and climatic protection, while large openings enable cross ventilation. Interior finishes reference Rwandan basketry, reinforcing cultural continuity through material expression.

The result is a chapel that emerges from the landscape rather than occupying it, forming a layered integration of building, earth and community where worship, gathering and nature are experienced as a single continuous spatial condition.