Detail of the project ed. 2020

LOCALAR­CHI­TEC­TURE – NEW APOS­TOLIC CHURCH

Design­er	ANTOINE ROBERT-GRAND­PIERRE
Loca­tion	Chemin de la Batelière 5, Lau­sanne (VD)
Design Team	LOCALAR­CHI­TEC­TURE, Lausanne Antoine Robert-Grandpierre Manuel Bieler Lau­rent Saurer Con­stant Pasquier
Year	2019
Pho­to credits	© New Apos­tolic Church — LOCALAR­CHI­TEC­TURE / Matthieu Gafsou

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

A FUTURE IN DIAGONALS
The exten­sion of Lausanne’s New Apos­tolic Church was designed to draw out the exist­ing building’s intrin­stic qual­i­ties. We felt is was essen­tial to fol­low the clear diag­o­nal lines that under­pin the organ­i­sa­tion of its spaces and cir­cu­la­tion flows, and which are its defin­ing feature.
The new build­ing was con­ceived in a way that sought to hon­our and pre­serve its exist­ing spa­tial con­cepts, while at the same time adding a con­tem­po­rary qual­i­ty of light­ness and open­ness. The exten­sion went in tan­dem with a ren­o­va­tion of the exist­ing struc­ture, so as to com­bine the qual­i­ties of the old with a for­ward-look­ing vision.

TWO WINGS
The building’s new form com­pris­es two wings extend­ing from the cor­ners of the church, enlarg­ing the foy­er at ground lev­el towards the new entrance. One of these tri­an­gu­lar wings incor­po­rates the exist­ing ele­va­tor and meets the tip of the oth­er wing, which hous­es the new mul­ti­pur­pose hall. This meet­ing point, at the cor­ner, cre­ates a cov­ered piaz­za in front of the church, where the new entrance is locat­ed. The church looks as though borne aloft on wings – wings that are open­ing, to wel­come vis­i­tors. Sym­bol­i­cal­ly this new image sug­gests open­ness and flight, con­nect­ing Earth and Heaven.

OPE­NESS
The exist­ing foy­er is retained and expand­ed at ground lev­el. Retain­ing the main cir­cu­la­tion flow with its cor­ner stair­cas­es was impor­tant, in order to pre­serve the spir­it of the exist­ing build­ing; these stair­cas­es were restored and fit­ted with lighter and more trans­par­ent balustrades. The new entrance is set in the south-west cor­ner. The spa­cious new foy­er gives a clear view of the var­i­ous activ­i­ties tak­ing place and wel­comes the com­mu­ni­ty in a dynam­ic space that is open to the out­side world.

SIM­PLIC­I­TY
The exte­ri­or façade was redesigned to meet the new ener­gy effi­cien­cy stan­dards now in force as well as deliv­er­ing opti­mal ther­mal com­fort for the building’s users. The old façade has been replaced with an exposed con­crete con­struc­tion, light­ly coloured and tex­tured: the build­ing express­es a sim­ple and direct

Illus­tra­tive project report
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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