Behet Bondzio Lin Architekten combines "sacred and ordinary" in concrete church tower

German practice Behet Bondzio Lin Architekten has completed a church and social welfare centre in New Taipei City, Taiwan, housed in a high-rise concrete block topped with an angular roof.

Rather than adopting the typical symbols of a church building, the 11-storey building is instead informed by the new residential towers being built around it. Cruciform skylights in its roof and a cruciform window are the only visual clues to its purpose.

Tamkang Church is housed in a vertical building in Taiwan designed by Behet Bondzio Lin Architekten

"This building is sitting in a new urban settlement so is expecting to have 200,000 living units grow next to it within the next ten years," project designer Rodrigo Reverte told Dezeen.

"The building is one of the first built on this new development, so in religious terms, it was thought of as a limelight for people to come to, with its cross-shaped lit roof," he continued.

Randomly placed rectangular and square openings cover the facade

Across its 11 storeys, the building houses events spaces, lecture halls, congregation areas, classrooms and welfare spaces stacked atop one another and connected by staircases and lifts at the tower's corners.

"The architecture of cathedrals often uses the cruciform shape as the main element to organise its space," said the practice.

"The design concept of the Tamkang Church is also based on the cross, but in the broader sense...it interweaves people's lives through the church celebration and their daily life, and brings nature into the city life," it continued.

An abstract cruciform shape perforates the facade of the church

Wrapping around the ground floor, a series of thin steel beams mirroring the roof structure enclose a double-height entrance space, which can be subdivided into four for events and gatherings.

The main congregation area is a double-height, 600-seat auditorium on the third and fourth floors, with a cruciform window visible on the building's exterior.

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On the top floor is another church hall for ceremonies such as weddings and baptisms, illuminated by coloured, stained-glass-style windows inset into the steel frame of the angular roof structure.

A skylight above a baptismal font in this space is oriented to receive direct sunlight at 2pm, during ceremonies.

The church was constructed using board-formed concrete

A playful, informal arrangement of deeply-recessed windows and cut-outs characterise the exterior of the building, which has been finished in exposed, board-formed concrete.

"The window organisation is conceived as a constellation of shades of lights," said Reverte. "In the main stair space in between walls on the west side, the sun performs a cubism painting made out of light in the afternoon."

The interior spaces are organised across multiple levels

Small planted terraces have been created in some of these cut-outs, and at the top of the building a viewing balcony surrounds the church hall to give dramatic views over the landscape.

Concrete defines the building throughout, with a combination of exposed and polished surfaces in the interiors contrasted by pale plywood carpentry.

Areas of planting can be found on balconies

Details in the church spaces include a cast of Jesus made using the concrete formwork, and a wall behind the baptism space made with concrete cast using steel tubes to create a fluted effect.

Other recently completed places of worship include a circular church in Brno topped by a rainbow stained glass roof, and a church in South Korea with a curved stone facade.

The photography is byYuChen Chao.

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RCKa designs Nourish Hub to tackle food poverty in London

Architecture studio RCKa has transformed a row of vacant shop units in west London into a community kitchen and learning space that hopes to reduce dependency on food banks.

Located on the Edward Wood Estate in Hammersmith, Nourish Hub provides the first permanent home for UKHarvest, a charity that uses food as a tool for social impact.

Nourish Hub is designed to feel open and accessible

With Hammersmith & Fulham the London borough with the highest dependency on food banks, Nourish Hub's ambition is not only to provide food for vulnerable local residents. It offer opportunities for people to practice cooking skills, learn about nutrition and access jobs in the food industry.

The space includes a commercial kitchen, a teaching kitchen and a flexible space that can be used as a dining room, workspace, classroom or event venue.

A flexible interior can be used as a dining room, classroom, workspace or event venue

RCKa's role was not only to plan the interior, but to find ways of empowering the local community to get involved in the facility and make it their own.

The design strategy focused on making the space – which previously housed a post office and a supermarket – feel as accessible as possible.

Vibrant colours and bold signage make the space more welcoming

The facade can be opened up, thanks to sliding glass doors and a serving hatch, while bright colours and bold signage create a friendly feel throughout.

"Getting people through the door is the first challenge, so the Hub had to seem open and welcoming to the entire community," said RCKa director Dieter Kleiner.

The facade integrates a serving hatch and large sliding doors

When developing the design, the architects decided against a traditional community engagement programme. Instead, they hosted a range of pop-up activities to attract the interest of local residents and learn about their experiences.

They started by painting a graphic mural over the old shutters. They also set up an outdoor kitchen, created playful questionnaire cards and hosted workshops with children.

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"It wasn't about co-designing the space with local people; that wasn't what we needed," explained project architect Anthony Staples during a press tour.

"We had three aims: to raise awareness of the project, to test ideas and to establish a local identity."

A ceiling mural design came out of a children's workshop

In one children's workshop, participants created graphic designs out of raw fruit, vegetables and grains.

One of these designs is now painted on the ceiling, while another has been turned into ceramic wall tiles.

The training kitchen includes wheelchair-accessible surfaces

For the interior layout, RCKa took cues from Victorian kitchens. The teaching kitchen takes the form of a large island, while open cabinets display tableware and cookbooks.

"We were really inspired by old-fashioned kitchens, which are very performative," said Staples.

"Everything is on display, so when you go in, you feel like you want to touch and grab things."

Open shelving was favoured over cupboards

The space is furnished with wooden tables, and chairs in bold shades of red and yellow.

There are also various details added in to make the space accessible to a wide range of users. These include lowered surfaces that cater to wheelchair users and a curtain that supports those with specific privacy needs.

The children's design workshop also provided graphics for ceramic wall tiles

Yvonne Thomson, the CEO of UKHarvest, believes the concept can help to tackle issues of food poverty and insecurity, which impact an estimated 8.4 million people in the UK.

The project was realised with funding support from the Mayor of London's Good Growth Fund, as well as the borough, but the target is for Nourish Hub to become financially self-sufficient within three years.

"Great care has been taken to create a versatile space that enables us to facilitate positive change and meet the needs of different community groups," Thomson said.

The architects began the community engagement process by painting the old shutters

RCKa compares the project with its previous work on The Granville, a community centre with the purpose of providing accessible workspace for local startups.

Staples believes these types of projects could easily be replicated across the UK, to bring change at a large scale.

"This project is totally replicable," he said. "We could roll them out in a lot of London boroughs and beyond."

Photography is byFrancisco Ibáñez Hantke.

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#all #interiors #london #uk #england #communitycentres #rcka

Prefabricated bamboo community centre in Pakistan built by local people

Decorative bamboo screens enclose the Zero Carbon Cultural Centre, a giant pavilion in Makli built by local people together with architect Yasmeen Lari's Heritage Foundation of Pakistan organisation.

The Zero Carbon Cultural Centre serves as a community centre and social space for people living in poor and marginalised communities in the town, which is located in southern Pakistan.

It was designed by the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan specifically to host hands-on workshops for locals to strengthen their skills and help them live better-quality lives.

The Zero Carbon Cultural Centre is a bamboo pavilion in Makli

The Zero Carbon Cultural Centre is being showcased today as part of Lari's guest editorship for Dezeen 15 – an online festival celebrating Dezeen's fifteenth birthday.

As part of the event, Lari, who is the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, will present her manifesto for "a humanistic, inclusive architecture that is driven by environmental considerations" in a live interview with Dezeen's editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs.

According to the architect, the centre is the biggest bamboo structure in Pakistan and one of the largest in the world.

It was completed in 2017 on a 1.6-hectare site, chosen for its proximity to the poor communities in the shadow of the Makli Necropolis – a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to clusters of ancient funerary monuments.

It is the centrepiece of a 1.6-hectare campus

The pavilion takes the form of a large hangar, topped by a large thatched roof and surrounded by decorative bamboo screens. It measures 27 metres in length and is 18 metres wide, and at its highest point it reaches 11 metres.

Its design was developed by ​​the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan to embody Lari's philosophy of "barefoot social architecture" (BASA).

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The goal of BASA is to uplift impoverished communities without impacting the planet. This involves creating structures with local materials that are low-carbon and low-cost, as opposed to expensive materials such as concrete and steel.

In this case, the pavilion makes use of bamboo, a type of fast-growing grass, which was sourced from within southern Pakistan.

It was constructed by local people

Bamboo was chosen as it is both renewable and highly durable. It also allowed the organisation to work with local artisans who are adept at using the material, and local people who wanted to learn how to build with it.

The pavilion is composed of large prefabricated bamboo panels, measuring eight metres in height and 1.5 metres in width.

Prefabrication ensured a quick construction process and optimum quality control, as each panel was made under supervision in a workshop. It was complete in just 10 weeks.

"The resulting structure carried the sweat and pride of the local surrounding community and has become a source of great pride due to its size and unique characteristics," Lari told Dezeen.

The centre hosts workshops for poor communities nearby

The final open structure of the pavilion, combined with its thatched roof, ensures that the space remains cool and usable throughout hot summers without air conditioning.

Its open layout also caters for a variety of uses. In line with the objectives of BASA, it is used to teach local people how to make a variety of products with local materials, including terracotta tiles, smokeless stoves from mud and lime and compostable toilets.

Alongside workshops, it is also used for performances, lectures and conferences.

It also hosts conferences

Since the pavilion's completion, the site has been expanded and developed into a campus with other facilities including accommodation for visitors and a series of igloo-like structures that are used as additional workshop spaces.

Lari was the first woman to qualify as an architect in Pakistan. She ran her own studio until the year 2000 when she closed it to focus on socially conscious architecture.

She is one of 15 creatives presenting a manifesto for a better world at the Dezeen 15 digital festival. Others participating include Winy Maas, Es Devlin and Neri Oxman. Read Lari's manifesto here and see details of all the participants here.

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#pavilions #all #architecture #bamboo #communitycentres #yasmeenlari #pakistan