ARCH-4980.6 | Chris Perry, Assistant Professor

The New Hope Church

DESIREE EDGE

A new culmination of programmatic flexibility and natural integration within space is the future design for the religious edifice also known as a cultural religious center. Reconfigurability, site movement, and the concept of religion itself promote different denominations to fellowship and unite to foster growth in the Dudley Square community of Roxbury, Massachusetts.

The edifice is a response to the high need for a facility to house larger programs with larger gatherings that respond to other functions within the church besides a place of worship, hoping that the dwindled influence of religion will evoke a new drive to relinquish the importance of the Godliness inside of us rather than holding onto symbolic signifiers to define the divine ‘feeling’. For this reason, the service style is nomadic similar to Evangelism and makes a direct connection to God’s description of the holy tabernacle in the Book of Exodus as Moses travels through the wilderness. The place of worship becomes a temporary place as religious goers travel amongst churches and communities to spread the word.

Through the process of blurring the boundary of what is internal versus external, green space becomes a new innovative park on the roof that connects to the green belt outside of the site. By blending the two realms, exterior programs become intertwined with interior program. The design becomes an extension of its nature through a walkable roof with glass mound enclosures for greenhouse areas while allowing regional playing fields, gardens, amphitheater with the trellis system, and aleatory spaces around the large water collection system that form small lake compositions throughout. Inside, movable wall panels divide spaces that change depending on the users’ preference. The main zoning spaces include athletic, performance hall/ sanctuary, food outreach, and educational spaces which all are intertwined with fixed programs deriving from the habitable column. The programs become a reconfigurable system that becomes a solution to changing technologies, programs, and generally the community itself. A self supporting system in an immersive culture is a driver to innovative, sustainable design that encourages religion and community inclusively.