Margot Krasojević Architects proudly unveil a project to deliver renewable energy to worshipping communities in a newly-designed cliffside chapel in Montenegro.

Montenegro has an ancient history of religion and politics, and many Orthodox Christians retreated to the mountains in the 1600s to escape the Ottoman Empire. That exodus was repeated during the subsequent great wars and, today, it is a thriving tourist and mining-based country marked by numerous unexcavated mountain tunnels that are shortcuts towards the Adriatic Sea.

The Pilgrimage to Ostrog, one of Montenegro’s most famous cliffside churches, is still being undertaken today. Montenegro has a varied and, at times, treacherous and dangerous landscape; the country borders Serbia and Albania and has vertiginous mountain ranges, dense dark forests, mountain plains, valleys (canyons and gorges), and basins; a dynamic physical geographic basis and strip of the Adriatic coast. Tourists, worshipers, and families visit yearly, with most driving into one of several coastal towns for vacations. However, the dangerously sinuous roads are responsible for many accidents and deaths, with several shrines dotted along them as a reminder. The country is steeped in harrowing tales of bloodshed etched into the landscape.

The cliffside project undertaken by Margot Krasojević Architects respects the region’s natural beauty, but also considers the tough and inhospitable landscape, suggesting a more aggressive, dynamic approach to the design. Montenegro has a prevailing wind called Bora, fastest at the highest peaks, embracing the cliffsides by running along them. The project site is a disused, partly constructed tunnel with the retaining cliff walls built. Located between Kotor and Budva, the project combines the summer music festivals and raves popular in the area with a chapel as a type of renewable energy gathering—a congregation.

The prevailing Bora wind can reach 100 mph at the highest latitude, and the architecture choreographs the wind through the wind turbine channelled walls. The wind turbines are positioned in series to accelerate the speed when passed through differing cross-sections within the chapel design, increasing speed and efficiency. The building uses Archimedes spiral turbines, as they are more resilient and better suited for the Montenegrin environment’s characteristics. These turbines are less complicated to lean and are weighted differently to minimize backwind interference between the turbines, which can slow down and prevent maximum energy output.

The church embraces the idea of a congregation, a gathering of people to unite for self-expression and worship, echoing nearby raves and music festivals held along the coast, as well as Ostrog Cliff Church. The concept is to design spaces and platforms to bring people together using their kinetic movement and heat to generate electricity by employing thermodynamics and piezoelectricity along with wind energy, bringing sustainability from renewable energy to the remote areas of Montenegro. At times, the treacherous landscape with vertiginous heights can be unwelcoming to occupy. However, with a strong sense of history and community, the landscape has become more welcoming thanks to the thermodynamic wind turbine chapel venue, given that surplus energy generated is used to light up the dangerously curved roads that lead drivers to the Adriatic Sea from other nearby cities.

The typology of the chapel focuses on renewable energy and congregation. Worship, music, and dance come together in one building. The building unfurls from the cliffside, similar to the Bora wind, with the chapel connected to the music venue by a cliff walkway along the spiral wind turbine channels. The chapel uses hollow steel pipes wrapped around the vestibule containing the wind generator. The entire section is sculpted, folding out from the wind turbine walls. The rave club is composed of looped steel sections mimicking the soaring mountains of Montenegro; cross sections dive and rise out of the cliffside, breaking through the mountain like a beacon of light, and guiding drivers toward the sea.

The architecture uses thermoelectric materials, including conducting polymers, to convert thermal energy into electrical energy when exposed to temperature increase. The polymer is more adaptable and geometrically flexible, which is necessary for the building's intricate geometry. The chapel and rave club’s congregation generates enough heat energy to produce electricity. This thermoelectric effect is often associated with the piezoelectric effect and exploited for pyroelectric infrared temperature detectors. Gallium nitride, a semiconductor, is most commonly used as a pyroelectric crystal, similar to piezoelectric cells that can be applied to building materials and cladding to enable the semiconductors to detect temperature and pressure changes, which produces a voltage to generate an electrical charge stored like a capacitor when needed. The club's circular walkway dancefloor utilizes piezoelectric cells to generate an electrical charge. The architecture, coastal roads, and mountains illuminate when the chapel and club congregate.

The building's plan comprises three design areas: the chapel, the wind turbine wall, and the club/generator, using the principles of a wind organ and fluid dynamics to choreograph the prevailing Bora wind throughout the scheme. The building geometrically looks like it has captured wind movement, crystallising it mid-shift to reveal what is unseen, yet felt.