From the outset, Wes Buonerba, who is studying architecture, and Martin Soros, a civil engineering major, treated the project as more than a snow sculpture. Drawing directly from their academic training, they designed it as a simplified masonry building, modeled after Gothic churches that rely almost entirely on compression rather than steel or concrete reinforcement.

“It’s essentially a masonry structure,” Buonerba said. “If you have a perfect arch, all your masonry pieces are in compression, and that’s very stable. That’s why churches were [historically] built like that.”

The chapel is organized around four main rib arches, which are the primary structural elements that support the vaulting between them, transferring the weight of the ice downward into the ground. Between the ribs, Buonerba and Soros added infill walls, small Roman-style arches for windows and circular openings reminiscent of rose windows—all carved from ice blocks.

Inside, the chapel, dubbed St. Olaf’s, measures roughly 15 to 20 ft long, about 5 ft wide and 6½ ft tall. Rising above it is a slender spire weighing about 50 lb and reaching about 15 to 20 ft into the air.

 

Learning to Improvise

Making the arches was a challenge for the two, who also enlisted as many as 10 other student volunteers to help as their time allowed.

“We had a saw so that we could cut the ice blocks to angle, to chamfer the edges so they would act more like a voussoir and an arch,” Buonerba said. “A voussoir is just an arch or stone block that’s been cut and slightly angled so it fits along the profile of the arch. The keystone was the central voussoir that locks the arch in place.”

To create the building blocks, the students used recycling bins as molds, each filled with alternating layers of snow and water, compacted by hand and boot. The process, Soros said, closely resembled mixing concrete.

“It’s very analogous to the water-to-cement ratio when making concrete,” he said. “If you put too much snow in, the block falls apart. If you put too much water in, it becomes very heavy.”

The student builders adjusted the density of the ice blocks depending on where they would be used. Heavier, denser blocks were placed lower in the walls, while lighter blocks were used at a higher level, particularly for keystones atop arches. The approach reduced outward forces and eliminated the need for extensive buttressing.

To strengthen blocks internally, builders used a long-handled metal ice scraper to punch vertical holes through the packed snow before pouring in water. Once frozen, the resulting icicles acted like reinforcing bars.

“That was kind of like rebar,” Soros said. “You have a solid ice core down the middle.”

Temporary formwork held arches in place while they froze, and the two improvised to find items to adapt for that task.

“We used anything we could get our hands on,” Buonerba said. “I mean buckets from the basement, trash cans, a car hood and ladders from bunk beds. It was anything we could use to make this thing.”

The car hood, which was supported by two ladders braced apart at the base to counteract gravity, was used while the keystone was set.

“As soon as we got the keystone in, it was pretty much self-supporting,” Soros said.

Additional small transverse arches and thin ice walls between the main ribs helped lock the structure into a rigid system, reducing the risk of twisting or collapse if someone bumped into it. At one point during construction, Buonerba stood on one of the main arches while Soros stood on a smaller window arch, and they were thrilled when both held their weight.

The project’s water source was the showers in their dormitory.

In between classes, Buonerba and Soros were on site nearly constantly, investing about 60 hours each.

The chapel quickly became a campus attraction, drawing curious students, passersby, volunteers and national media attention. The students decided to ask the university to hold a Mass on the site.

Photo by Michael Caterina/University of Notre Dame

Extracurricular Lessons

The project offered lessons beyond structural mechanics. For Buonerba, it reinforced his interest in sacred architecture and hands-on building. For Soros—whose interest in civil engineering grew from volunteering on projects in South America and seeing the effects of inadequate infrastructure—the chapel reflected the satisfaction he feels in building something tangible to benefit a community.

“It might look like we were just kids playing in the snow,” Soros said, “but it really was applying what we learned—basic physics, basic engineering.”

Soros volunteered last year through NDSEED, a student civil engineering club at Notre Dame that designs and builds a footbridge every year. As design manager, he worked last year on the complete structural calculations and drawing set, spending one and a half months in Papa Chacra in southern Bolivia building the bridge alongside the local community.

After graduation, Soros plans to go to Argentina to work at La Nazerena, a community center in Buenos Aires that serves children and families experiencing poverty.

Buonerba still has another year of study at Notre Dame in the architecture program, which requires five years.

As for the chapel project, Soros said to make an impactful structure “you don’t need something impressive or insanely ornate. We were just using what God gave us—the snow that fell and water from showers on the first floor [of their dorm.]”

Luis Fargier Galbadon, associate professor of practice in civil engineering and architecture, commended how the students took classroom lessons to create a functional structure.

“They applied the same principles that Romans used to design churches and that engineers use today to design bridges,” he said. “The key to the structure’s stability is its arch shape. By carefully placing the ice blocks in a series of arches, a structure that can support its own weight under compression is formed.”

He cited courses such as statics, build break perfect (engineering), introduction to structural engineering and design studio (architecture) as introducing concepts useful for designing and building the structure.

“I think it’s remarkable,” added Brian Smith, teaching professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering and earth sciences and in the school of architecture. “It’s both playful and visually beautiful. They created something that gathered our community, which is really the highest purpose of architecture and engineering.”

With their work done, the students both enjoy looking out their classroom windows now to see peers and others on campus visiting the chapel, but neither is sentimental about the structure’s inevitable end.

“It served its purpose,” Buonerba said. “We got to celebrate Mass with 2,500 students. It brought people together, gave a lot of joy and now it will melt and go back to the earth.”