Detail of the project ed. 2016

belle­vue-first-con­­gre­­ga­­tion­al-church-adap­­tive-reuse / atelierjones

Design­er	Susan Jones
Loca­tion	Belle­vue, WA, USA
Design Team	clients: Co-Chairs BFCC Design Committee Otis Gillaspie, Don­na Kozial Owner’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Trin­i­ty Real Estate Richard Leider Rob Larson archi­tect: Susan Jones, FAIA Joe Swain Michelle Kang Brooks Brainerd Marisol Foreman Mesa Sherriff Dhara Goradia Brett Holverstott Megu­mi Migita design and engi­neer­ing consultants: Struc­tur­al Engi­neer, DCI Engineers Greg Gil­da, Matthew Arnheim Civ­il Engi­neer, DCI Engineers Dar­ren Simp­son, Matthew Frisby Acoustic Design, ARUP Engineers Den­nis Blount Light­ing Design, Blan­ca Lighting Bev Shimmen Lucre­tia Blanca Land­scape Architect Lauch Bethune Day­light­ing, Inte­grat­ed Design Lab Christo­pher Meek Justin Schwarzhoff Organ Consultant Bur­ton Tidwell gen­er­al contractor: Goudy Construction Blaise Goudy Owner Carl Deach Superintendent Gary Moss Project Manager CLT fabricator: Struc­turlam Kris Spickler archi­tect Susan Jones Har­vard Grad­u­ate School of Design, M.Arch 1988, Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty 1983 Joe Swain Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton M.Arch 2012, Brown Uni­ver­si­ty, 2006 Michelle Kang Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton M.Arch, 2013, Barnard Col­lege, 2006 Brooks Brain­erd Har­vard Grad­u­ate School of Design, Vas­sar College Marisol Fore­man Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton M.Arch 2015, Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado, 2010 Mesa Sher­riff Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia M.Arch 2014, Cal­i­for­nia Poly Tech, B.S.Planning 2011 Dhara Gora­dia Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton M.Arch 2015, Uni­ver­si­ty of Virginia Brett Holver­stott Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon, Reed College Megu­mi Migi­ta Mei­ji Uni­ver­si­ty 2016
Year	2016
Pho­to credits	ate­lier­jones: all except E_4, E_2, I_1, by John Koziol

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

With­in the strict grid of the two-sto­ry build­ing, the irreg­u­lar form of the sanc­tu­ary is insert­ed, push­ing out exist­ing walls and roof, cre­at­ing a new defin­i­tive form with­in the exist­ing matrix. Delin­eation between walls and roof are col­lapsed by using struc­tural­ly inte­grat­ed CLT, or cross-lam­i­­nat­ed-tim­ber pan­els, as the pri­ma­ry struc­ture and fin­ish mate­r­i­al, fur­ther reduc­ing the project’s over­all car­bon foot­print. Small shafts of sky­lights are insert­ed into this com­pos­ite skin, cre­at­ing sharp, high light with­in the new, 50’ high space. Employ­ing the CLT pan­els as an irreg­u­lar, fold­ed plate struc­ture insures both greater struc­tur­al sta­bil­i­ty as well as a rich inter­play of light, shad­ow and the warm tex­ture of the Cana­di­an White Pine of the white-washed CLT pan­els. Build­ing out of the research per­formed by the Uni­veristy stu­dents and the sub­mit­ting architect/professor and her firm, the project looks close­ly at issues of tec­ton­ics, form, build­ing tech­nol­o­gy, space and light in this new sacred space.

One of the old­est church­es in the exur­ban tech city out­side of Seat­tle, the First Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church con­gre­ga­tion was estab­lished in 1896. Since the 1990’s, the church’s social ser­vice and con­gre­ga­tion­al needs have been out­grow­ing their exist­ing build­ing and in 2013, the con­gre­ga­tion sold their well-locat­ed down­town prop­er­ty, cur­rent­ly locat­ed on the cen­tral cor­ri­dor in down­town Belle­vue. Rein­vest­ing, just on the edge of the down­town, just ½ mile away, the church adapts a clas­sic lowrise sub­ur­ban 1970’s office build­ing into their future space of wor­ship and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach. The adap­tive reuse of a tired, com­mer­cial real estate build­ing type into a spir­i­tu­al space not only com­mits to eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty by reusing an exist­ing build­ing, but pro­vides a twist on the broad­er nation­al trend of con­vert­ing our exist­ing spir­i­tu­al spaces into com­mer­cial uses.

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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