We are delighted that The Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre has won one of this years Wood Awards in the Education and Public Sector. The Wood Awards is the UK’s premier competition for excellence in architecture and product design in the world’s only naturally sustainable material. The Awards aim to recognise, encourage and promote outstanding design, craftsmanship and installation using wood.
Author and Cambridge academic Mary Ann Steane has written on the Chapel’s “lyrical embodiment of liturgy and light” in an article published in Architecture Today. Dr. Steane previously included the Carmelite Monastery project in her book ‘The Architecture of Light’. The article in Architecture Today elucidates on the Chapel’s filtering of natural light through the internal timber structure, as a means of tying the building to its surroundings.
“On a sunny day the upper surfaces become an animated embroidery of light and shadow in tune with the surrounding windblown foliage, but even on a dull day the way that light is held within the tall enclosure is critical to the project’s narrative of tethering.”