Assignment I

Date
Cadet Chapel was the highlight architectural
element of the master plan by the
architectural firm SOM for the entire campus
of the United States Air Force Academy.
Designed by architect Walter Netsch of
Skidmore, Owings & Merril of Chicago its
proposal was controversial in its origins but
over time the Cadet Chapel has become an
example classic and very appreciated of
modernist architecture.
The chapel followed the form-active
structure of design and gained interest of
many as the concept was new.
The Cadet Chapel was created as a single
symbolic religious structure that
accommodates the individuality of three
major American faiths, thus requiring three
distinct chapels.
The building has a surprising succession of
17 needles of glass and aluminum each
composed of 100 tetrahedra. Continuous
panels of bright colored glass tubular dress
tetrahedra, allowing diffused light into the
building.
The front facade on the south side, has a
wide granite staircase with steel railings
topped by a handrail aluminum
load being safely transferred to the ground clear span of 85m x 26m without intermediate support
• The building that houses the
chapels rises 46m, has a
length of 85m and a width of
26m.
• The most striking aspect of the
chapel is its row of seventeen
towers.
• The structure is a tubular steel
frame consisting of 100
identical tetrahedrons, each
23m long and weighing 5tn,
coated aluminum panels.
Tetrahedrons 0,30cm are
spaced from one another,
creating holes in the frame are
filled with stained glass 25mm
thick.

• Tetrahedra that make up the

needles are covered by
triangular aluminum panels,
while the tetrahedra generated
between them are covered
with a mosaic of colored glass
with aluminum frame.

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• All the load from the
aluminium structure is
transferred to the RCC piers.
•
• The use aluminium frame
made the structure light and in
turn the load transferred on
the RCC piers was reduced.
•
• rotestant Chapel is the largest,
and here glass panels form
colored ribbons with dazzling
colors, along the lines of
architectural tetrahedra. The
colors are dark and rich on the
back of the space, becoming
brighter as you move towards
the altar.

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 Chapel Protestant
The main floor of the Protestant
chapel, on the top floor, is enclosed
by the extruded aluminum coated
tetrahedra separated by continuous
panels of colored glass and special
laminated glass windows.
Catholic Chapel
The terraced level of the Catholic
chapel on the ground floor, is
characterized by the prefabricated
masonry forming the pattern of the
roof, sidewalls with amber glass
windows and rows of faceted crystals.
Jewish Chapel
Jewish chapel is a circular room
closed with cypress frames and slabs
of colored glass with a brown lobby
Jerusalem stone donated by the Air
Force of Israel. It is located on the
ground floor as well as the Buddhist
shrine.