PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS - Religious Facilities

Located within the heart of a residential neighborhood in Al-Masayel, Kuwait, the mosque embodies a harmonious integration of traditional elements and modern interpretations, creating a spiritual and functional space for the local community. The central design concept draws inspiration from the Moqarnas, a distinctive Islamic architectural element that balances the load...

This project is a new proposal on how to re-design existing mosques, whose number is approaching 85.000 in Turkey and increasing day by day, instead of demolishing and rebuilding them. The data of existing building has always been used as a guide on the design process, and the main goal was providing harmony between the existing building and additional volumes. KOS Mos...

The location of this mosque is in a rural area outside the city of Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC. The project land is located in a completely green area, and there are no buildings around it that can serve as a reference in the design of the building. We decided to make green, the only design element in the environment, a part of the design of the building, rather tha...

Project Name: Fengxian Qixian Jesus Church Architectural Firm: Wutopia Lab Website: http://www.wutopialab.com/ Chief Architect: Yu Ting Project Manager&Project Architect: Dai Xinyang Design Team: Third Stage（2022-2023）: Mu Zhilin，Song Qining(Intern)，Zhang Yucheng(Intern) Second Stage（2015-2017）: Yu Jing，Song Mengjiao (Intern)，Cai Chengze (Intern) First Stage（2015）: Xia M...

Called Temple of Heart, this year's official temple will be an all-wood design conceived by designers Ela Madej and Reed Finlay. Each year, a new design is chosen by festival organisers for the structure. For Burning Man 2023, Madej and Finlay conceived of a temple with a twelve-pointed base that narrows as it reaches the zenith of the structure, which will be 40 feet t...

Designer Cho Shinhyung from DFFPM – Differential Permanence Architectural Office takes over the construction of The Monolithic Stone Chapel in Busan, South Korea. Located in a large field in Gijang-gun, the church is built as an artistic installation for the purpose of prayer, studying the Bible, and honoring the landowner’s late mother. The design explores architectural...

The full and empty spaces are alternated according to a horizontal matrix of control of the spaces and volumes that bring in relation to the classroom, ministerial premises and open spaces, resolving the steep slope. A stereotomic volume, made of white concrete, stands out on the churchyard with a 1x1x3 proportion and houses the classroom. This prism, on which the entra...

The renovated church, along with the added black volume, holds an information centre and cafe as well as an events venue designed to host small concerts and exhibitions. Built in 1902, the original church was closed to the public and has been used as a private storage space for the library next to the site for the past sixty years. Despite its poor condition, Atelier-r...

Because of the difficulty to acquire land rights and the crowdedness of metropolitan spaces in Taiwan, religious architecture in this country often ought to confront the distance between man and heaven caused by the vertical massing of buildings. Unlike European churches that are able to create sanctity through structure, elevated space and mysterious lighting between th...

The church is situated in a church grove extending from The Fjord of Vennesla. Between the church and the cemetery, an open space has been established that pulls together the footpaths towards the area from the south, west, and north, and is framed by the bell tower which also marks the church's main entrance. The new church will supplement the old Vennesla church and fu...

Jakarta-based creative duo Dave Orlando and Fandy Gunawan rebuild the Islamic Center of Nurul Yaqin Mosque in Palu, Indonesia, composing a minimalist floating form. The restorative project of the spiritual space applies primarily concrete and brick materiality, as well as blue terrazzo for the flooring. The architecture displays modest and minimalistic Islamic ornamentat...

Located in the village of Rake within the South Downs National Park, the temple is designed for quiet contemplation and to provide a spiritual connection to the landscape. James Gorst Architects was commissioned for the project by White Eagle Lodge, a non-denominational multi-faith spiritual organisation, which asked for a building that is characterised by "peace and si...

Ennead Architects, alongside structural engineers Silman; Building Conservation Associates; and James R. Gainfort Consulting Architects, have refaced and restored the dome, which was a 1909 addition from Spanish-American architect and master builder Rafael Guastavino. The rounded top was a provisional design element spanning over the church’s four granite arches, occupyi...

Located midblock on Van Ness Avenue between Sacramento and Clay Streets and slotted between an apartment building and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the new facility will provide an expanded presence for an institution that has been serving the San Francisco Buddhist community for more than 30 years. Designed by the San Francisco office of SOM, the 41,000-square-foot, 6-s...

The chapel is a space of tranquility and celebration. This translates into the project volumetry. Three individual volumes that together become one. The blocks placed on the extremes are great monoliths of solemn expression. They are closed, heavy, and wide units. With a traditional gable roof. The first unit acts as a lobby, while the last serves as a lavatory and a rel...

Clifford’s Tower crowns the earthwork mound raised by William the Conqueror in 1068. For centuries it was the keep and chief strongpoint of York Castle. At first, there was a timber tower here, where the most notorious event in the history of the castle took place in 1190, when the Jews of York, who had taken refuge in the tower, died in tragic circumstances. The stone ...

The church's western facade that surrounds its entrance is clad with porcelain slabs depicting a traditional Armenian cross or "tree of life" with distinctive floral branching arms. This Armenian symbol of faith in the face of suffering and of resurrection and redemption serves as a memorial to the victims of the Armenian genocide. Viewed more closely, as the visitor ap...

Set amongst a clearing of trees in a forested area, the Ørestad Church is designed to be a communal gathering nexus that "offers solace" to parishioners and is "untouched by the bustle of the city," according to Global Design Director Jacob Kurek. Made of wood and wood shingle, the 18,837-square-foot (1,750-square-meter) church is said to reflect the open landscape and...

Most of the buildings around the site are three to six stories raw houses in the high-density residential neighborhood. The small church plays the role as the community center. According to the Bible, before King Solomon built the first temple, believers were inspired by the image of “meeting tent”. The architect Liao converted the figurative concept of "the tent" into...

International firm RSAA has completed the ‘chamber church‘ in China, realized as a series of layered silhouettes. Its white body stands pure against the surrounding greenery, while its facade rises up towards the sky which results in a sense of divinity. The final design takes shape as a symmetrical volume — penetrated from arcs — that gradually elevate, achieving a monu...

On the top of a small hill in Cuenca, in central Spain, Sancho-Madridejos architecture office has designed a chapel for a private client. On a rural estate among centenary holm oaks and truffle cultivation, the final project takes shape as an origami-like artwork: an angular concrete structure with its front façade rising up as a bent pyramid. The designers placed grea...

If built, the elliptical brick mosque will be positioned on an elevated hilltop site surrounded by roads on the northern edge of the city. According to architect Luca Poian, director of Luca Poian Forms, the mosque would be visible from several vantage points and become an "iconic and memorable" landmark. "The building is conceived as an elliptical extrusion at the sou...

upon the 20th anniversary of september 11th, 2001, the santiago calatrava-designed church lights up for the first time. the st. nicholas greek orthodox church stands in the shadow of the freedom tower at the site of the world trade center, and occupies the site of the former church which was destroyed in new york on 9/11. the ceremony was held on the evening of september...

OMA at last unveils its ‘Audrey Irmas Pavilion,’ a jewish temple which marks a new icon in LA. The building is completed after over a decade of effort, and stands as the firm’s first cultural building in the California city and its first ever work designed for a religious institution. The winning entry of a competition in 2015, the project is defined by its single monol...

At her eponymous studio in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where she was born and raised, Marina Tabassum is pioneering a new generation of architectural thought, calling for a focus on ‘architecture of relevance’. She says, ‘The market-driven building industry must focus on social and economic equity instead of solely profit-driven practice. We must rethink and re-evaluate our livin...

The studio, which won the project in an international competition commissioned by the Cambridge Mosque Trust, wanted the Cambridge Central Mosque to be respectful of its surroundings while simultaneously standing out. "It was a question of what a British mosque should be in the 21st century; it was very much about recognising that Islam is part of British culture now ...

Completed in its current iteration in 1797 by architect James Spiller, St John at Hackney Church has been at the heart of its community since as early as 1275. After a devastating fire in 1955, and subsequent restoration, the condition of the church’s interior deteriorated in the following decades. It is in this context that designer John Pawson and architects Thomas For...

Local practice Robert Gutowski Architects filled the church in the village of Páty in Budapest with modern takes on traditional aspects of Medieval, ecclesiastical architecture. The intention was to shift the emphasis towards the altar and the congregation to make the act of worship more engaging. Traditional churches typically have a rectangular floor plan and are...

The interior and architecture studio chose to complete the church's entire structure, along with exterior and interior facades, from timber to create a unified architectural appearance. "The core concept of the design is the usage of single material, wood," TSDS Interior Architect told Dezeen. "This is a part of experiment to show how a single material can create a...

Situated on the banks of Da Han river, the Wu Shen temple in the Xinzhuang district of the city has been a local religious base for nearly three centuries, attracting a great number of worshippers. For 2020’s festive events, the organizer’s wanted to bring a revitalized touch to the old gateway, which PLAYFUL design studio was commissioned to develop. Located at the ...

Looking forward, I realized that the shape of this spray was actually made of bamboo! This is the “Tide” of modern bamboo-woven public art created by the architect Mr. Xie Jun for this flower show."Tide" can refer to a new wave, or it can be imagined as a wave of waves that rushed and slammed against the reefs on the shore. It represents a bold innovation and change. In ...

The church locates at Jaio-xi, in the north region of Taiwan island, where is humid and rainy in winter, hot in summer. The building site has east-west orientation and 1.5 meters hight difference between front and rear roads. The ground floor of the building is multifunctional and opens to the public, which deliberately elevated to function as a “city square” with fo...

A major north-south route, the A13 transverses the eastern section of the Swiss Alps through the sprawling, trilingual canton of Graubünden. Along with wayside shrines, ecumenical chapels situated along long and lonely stretches of highway are fairly common across Europe, particularly in Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, where there are nearly 50 so-call...

Occupying a prominent site in the heart of Parramatta, St John’s Cathedral is Australia’s oldest church site in continuous use. It was established in 1796 as a makeshift timber building. The planning proposal, approved by Parramatta council’s local planning panel on 3 December, would clear the way for a new square to be built around the church, which would be open to ...

The project will see a derelict 1960s brutalist office building near the historic heart of the city renovated and extended. The new campus will accommodate two independent theological colleges, regional administration and congressional facilities for the synod of Bavaria, a 100-room student hostel, a nursery and a public chapel. Kevin Carmody, the Australian-born d...

The new redevelopment plans will transform the 1970s administration building into a church campus in Nuremberg, Germany. The new church campus will generate space for encounter, communication, research and education. The transformed external architectural language creates a more public and civic identity for the new building. The 38,000-square-metre new development o...