Dates: Design: 1998, delivery: 2001 Photographs: Christian Richters, Peter Luyendijk Other publications: Architectural Review nov. 2001 L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui nov.-dec. 2001 De Architect jul.-aug. 2001 Bouw nr. 11 nov. 2001 Dutch yearbook of architecture 2002 The catholic cemetery of St. Lawrence in Rotterdam dates from de mid nineteenth century. It was designed as a campo santo, an Italian field for the dead; the cemetery is focused around a central chapel, surrounded by radiating paths. The cemetery chapel stands on a site of an old neo gothic church dating from 1869. Owing to the poor sub ground on which it was build, the original chapel gradually tilted over until danger of collapsing. In 1963 the chapel was replaced with a new tepee-like structure on the existing under croft, covered in copper. This too became unstable and now, the third chapel on this site was designed with new foundations. The routing through the chapel evinces confidence in the continuity of life. You carry the deceased into the chapel, pause a while for reflection in a quit, contemplative space and then exit the chapel, all in one, smooth movement. The space is organic in form, shaped by an unbroken, sinuous wall, raised seventy centimetres above the ground. The intense blue inner surface of this wall bears passages from the Requiem in many languages, a reflection of the multicultural Rotterdam community served by this Catholic cemetery. Above the space the roof floats like a curved sheet of paper. The golden ceiling is washed from below by artificial light while an opening in the ceiling admits a shaft of daylight. The chapel stands on a plateau of gravel within the contours of its neo-gothic predecessor. Two inlaid stone floors indicate the respective positions of the priest and the mourners. Because of the former problems with the foundations, the choice was made not to fill the contours with sand and then start building the chapel but to leave the old cellar area open. This means the piles reach until 3m above base level and have also a stability function. Therefore steel piles were used. Above the piles a grid of steel beams support the reinforced concrete floor. Finally this solution was too expensive and replaced by a sand filled contour, and a concrete floor on steel piles only under the chapel area. The chapel is made of a steel structure consisting of round columns (o114mm), supporting the steel beams (IPE400) of the roof. To reduce the thickness of the roof on the edge IPE120 profiles are used. Because of the light zones above the floor and below the ceiling, and because of the curved walls, a cross bracing was not possible to stabilize the chapel. Therefore a framework was made of the columns together with the two curved UNP200 profiles. The whole construction is designed with EPW. The contours of the concrete floor and the façade are imported from an Auto Cad drawing of the architect. For tendering some construction drawings were made by printing the renderings en floor plans on scale. All the necessary calculations are done with EPW: Pile reactions Forces and displacements of the concrete floor (reinforcement is calculated with ABT-software) Forces and displacements of the steel construction Unity checks on the steel beams and columns Stability calculations due to the wind loads 49 SCIA User Contest Catalog
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