INTERIOR DESIGN OF PROTESTANT ST. LUKES CHAPEL AT THE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL GRAZ

• Interior Architecture
• Space Planning
• Interior Design
• Lighting Design

The FRACTAL CHAPEL at the University Hospital Graz hosted by the Protestant Church, serves as a serene retreat for patients, medical workers, and visitors. The design is based on the latest neuroscience and environmental psychology research and integrates biophilic elements and fractal patterns, creating a peaceful and emotional refuge that enhances health and well-being through its stress-reducing effect. Spanning 35 square meters and featuring a double-height ceiling and a one-sided, room-high glass facade, this sanctuary follows fundamental religious scenography with its low entry area, revealing an 8-meter-tall space. Aiming to create a comforting, warm, and relaxing atmosphere for retreat, tranquility, and recreation in a demanding hospital environment, the interior combines several biophilic design strategies – natural light, materials, and patterns. Alongside the existing walls, a perforated screen unwinds spirally – an allegory of the human life cycle, simultaneously concealing functions and facilities such as the sacristy, multimedia equipment, and building technology. The cut-out wall panels allow natural and artificial light to filter into the space, conveying time and motion and adding expressiveness paired with serenity and silence. The fractal patterns enveloping the chapel were developed by a transdisciplinary collaboration between the product design studio 13&9 Design and Prof. Richard Taylor (University of Oregon and Fractals Research). Fractals are the building blocks of many of nature’s patterns. Taylor´s scientific studies of fractals examine the positive psychological, physiological, and neurological responses that people experience when viewing fractal patterns. The visual complexity generated by their harmonic repetition triggers a natural relaxation effect, with people’s stress levels reducing by 60% when looking at fractals. Taylor’s studies commenced twenty years ago with NASA experiments aimed at reducing astronauts‘ stress levels. The pattern designs for the chapel project build on this legacy with the aim of re-connecting people with the health benefits of nature’s beauty. The fractal pattern designs are generated by a unique computer program developed by the transdisciplinary team. This flexible art-science tool combines the designers’ artistic input with the scientists’ quantitative analysis. The team performed psychology experiments to confirm the positive impacts of the fractal patterns used in the chapel’s designs. The patterns balance desirable levels of preference and engagement with relaxing and refreshing qualities. The results, published in a special edition on Biophilic Design Rationale in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, show the chapel’s fractal designs to be very effective at balancing engagement, preference, refreshment, and relaxation qualities for a broad group of observers. Specifically, these patterns have the greatest agreement across individuals in terms of their preference, engagement, and refreshment while also maintaining relaxing effects. These results suggest that the fractal pattern applications will have a positive impact on a broad range of building occupants. Therefore, the chapel’s fractal patterns celebrate neurodiversity in a powerful, fundamental manner. To further emphasize the interplay of the fractal patterns with the spiral and light, the material range is kept minimal by solely adding a wooden ceiling, flooring, benches, and an altar, contributing to the warm tonality with its earthy materiality. With its focus on health and well-being, this chapel creates an inspiring and relaxing environment, seeking to enhance hope and tranquility in a challenging location like this surgery clinic. The altar in the middle of the space, created by artist Manfred Erjautz, is crafted from the upside-down rootstock of a walnut tree, and serves as a unique centerpiece, evoking the roots of life, deeply anchored in the unseen soil of the space. The transformed rootstock comes from a former cemetery site that is now used as a kindergarten playground and tells a profound story of change, transience, and shifting levels of meaning. Surrounded by fractal surfaces and set in scene by a sophisticated lighting system, this altar invites moments of silence and contemplation – a place that contrasts the hectic pace of everyday life with the timeless vitality of nature.

• project name: FRACTAL CHAPEL
• function: Healthcare, Public
• location: Graz, AUSTRIA
• client:
  • KAGes - Steiermärkische Krankenanstaltengesellschaft m.b.H.
• floor space: 35 m²
• number of floors: 1
• project team:

  • Oliver Kupfner,
    Martin Lesjak, Jörg Kindermann, Lisa Nett

• photographer: Paul Ott