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This week we’ve selected the best chapels previously published on our site. They reveal different ways of designing a small and sacred space. For inspiration on how to create these atmospheres, integrate different materials, and make proper use of light, we present 32 remarkable examples.

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Sold in standard 4 foot wide sheets since 1928, plywood has been a staple of conventional construction for nearly a century. Dimensionally strong, easily cut, lightweight and capable of creating an effective barrier, plywood and other engineered panels like OSB, particle board, and MDF is ubiquitous, particularly for their use as sheathing material in balloon and timber frame construction systems. Boats, airplanes and even automobile frames have historically been built out of plywood, predating (or replacing) steel, aluminum, and fiberglass. As a simple material capable of being manipulated and shaped in a wide variety of ways, sheet ply was also favored in furniture and architectural designs by modernists including Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Alvar Aalto, and Marcel Breuer.

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Portuguese architectural photographer João Morgado shared with us a series of images from Álvaro Siza's latest project, the Capela do Monte. This chapel is located in Barão de São João, in the Algarve region of Portugal. Part of the Monte da Charneca complex, Capela do Monte was commissioned in 2016 by a Swiss-American couple residing there.

Inaugurated in March of this year, the sandy colored, 10.34 x 6.34-meter structure was built at the highest point of a hill and can only be accessed by foot. Its monolithic geometry suggests, from outside, a serenity from the inner space. The wooden furniture within the chapel were all designed by Siza and manufactured by Serafim Pereira Simões Successors of Porto.

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