Chapel of the Dry River

A braided gravel bed that lost its river to an upstream weir, edge of a farming village.

Archive no.: 016
Program: One unprogrammed room, a bell, and a bench for forty
Area: 68 m²
Status: Complete, 2025
Drawing set: 2 plates at 1:100

Site north
102° off sheet

PLINTH PRACTICE ARCHIVE · NO. 016 · SHEET 1 OF 2 Scale 1:100

FIG. 1 WEST ELEVATION. THE DRAWING IS CERTAIN AT THE DOOR AND LETS GO AT THE EDGES, LIKE THE VILLAGE DOES.

PLINTH PRACTICE ARCHIVE · NO. 016 · SHEET 2 OF 2 Scale 1:100

FIG. 2 PLAN AT SILL HEIGHT. THE OLD CURRENT PASSES UNDER THE FLOOR AS A STRING OF CHANNELS.

The village asked for almost nothing: one room on the gravel where the river used to run, with a bell and a bench. Buildings with small programs deserve the most careful drawings, because there is nowhere for a mistake to hide.

The west elevation is drawn the way the building meets the place. At the door the line work is certain: hard ink, counted boards, a handle you can trust. Towards the edges the drawing loosens into graphite gesture, because past the gable there is only gravel and afternoon, and a hard boundary line would be a lie about where the architecture stops.

In plan, the braided channels of the old current are drawn passing beneath the floor as a bundle of strings, and the floor boards run with them. The section cut through the threshold is one red line, the width of the wall, which on this project is the entire structural argument. The room fills for weddings, funerals, and the first rain of the year, whichever comes.