CLIENT Episcopal Dioceses of Bethlehem   LOCATION Hamlin, Pennsylvania COST $21 Million USD
		DESCRIPTION The Hamlin Chapel and Library is a unique project that combines two institutions - one secular and one sectarian - under a single roof, retaining their separate identities while allowing for shared facilities and programs. Set on a steeply raking hillside in rural Pennsylvania, the structure's landscaped and terraced roof is the first vista to meet the eye upon approach from the highway. Traversed by space-framed skylights and walkways, the roofscape unifies the building - both literally and figuratively - by bestowing a single sheltering canopy over its two dovetailing components, the chapel and library. These two V-shaped elements, derived from the diagram of a rectangle sliced diagonally in half, share a common wall yet pull outward with canted walls, creating a building profile of oppositional symmetry. The building's inner tension is both enhanced and released through the treatment of the exterior façade, which constitute a highly sophisticated and subtle expression of the architect's ongoing investigation into the relationship of surface, structure and sculptural form. A four-story structural glass curtain wall, revealing the library's reading rooms, welcomes the visitor approaching from the landscaped and terraced parking lot. This transparent wall is contrasted on either side by dynamically sculpted, upwardly canted limestone sheathing. The limestone panels, hung horizontally on a steel-braced frame set fifteen inches in front of the glass curtain, alternate with voids of equal size to create a delicate yet imposing open-weave pattern across the façade. The recessed structural glass wall allows an outside observer to glimpse activities within the building while providing views of the pastoral landscape from the inside. The contrasting surface qualities of solid and void are carried into the interior of the building, where the programmatic needs of the project - multiple areas of worship, a choir loft, parish administration offices and classrooms for the chapel; an auditorium, computer labs, media rooms, a children's reading area, public reading rooms and offices for the library - are arrayed in and around two V-shaped atria with outwardly raked walls. These interior spaces, clad in glass walls of varying transparency and translucency, are supported by thick, sculpturally planed floor surfaces incorporating the majority of the building's infrastructure. The strong geometry of these surfaces is relieved by the openly visible edges of the interior walls and the open-weave pattern of the exterior limestone sheathing. These features, combined with a doubled four-story structural glass curtain wall behind the chapel's altar, the glass entrance wall and the skylight roof structure, transform the atria into deep wells of natural light. The exterior grounds - a downhill slope against which the building's upwardly canted form is set like a metaphorical revetment - further embody the project's dualities. On the opposite side of the structure from its parking lot - the most basic practical use of a land surface - lies an outdoor meditation garden and chapel that flows from the glass curtain behind the main altar. Fourteen abstract sculptures, symbolizing the Stations of the Cross, are placed at precise yet seemingly random intervals throughout the garden. A columbarium for cremated ashes, set at the garden's outermost edge, completes the project.