Detail of the project ed. 2024

com­­mu­ni­­ty-cen­ter-with-chapel-in-ker­pen-man­heim-ger­­many / Germany

Design­er	Berthold Jung­blut // Dirk Waldmann
Loca­tion	Kolp­ingstadt Kerpen
Nation	Ger­many
Design Team	office03 // wald­mann & jungblut Architek­ten Part­ner­schaft mbB Dirk Waldmann Berthold Jungblut Lara Frisch Ron­ja Monshausen Nadine Lubeley
Year	2022
Pho­to credits	all pho­tos: Vio­la Epler

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter with Chapel in Kerpen-Manheim

The vil­lage of Man­heim is one of many vil­lages in the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area that has had to give way to exca­va­tors in recent years due to lig­nite min­ing. As part of the relo­ca­tion of the vil­lagers to a new vil­lage, the con­struc­tion of a new church and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter was also necessary.
The objec­tive of the archi­tec­tur­al com­pe­ti­tion was to gath­er pro­pos­als on how the church space and the rooms of the com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter, includ­ing the parish hall and library, could be sit­u­at­ed in the new village.
In addi­tion to many func­tion­al and urban plan­ning require­ments, the main ques­tion was how a com­plete­ly new and for­ward-look­ing church build­ing could keep the his­to­ry of the com­mu­ni­ty in the old vil­lage present and alive. For this rea­son, the com­mu­ni­ty decid­ed to ide­o­log­i­cal­ly estab­lish a con­nec­tion with the old vil­lage of Man­heim by tak­ing many arti­facts from the old exist­ing church.
The basic idea of the com­pe­ti­tion design was to define the com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter with chapel and church tow­er as a self-con­­tained dis­trict that fits into the oblique street geom­e­try. All rooms are ini­tial­ly ori­ent­ed inward and com­mu­ni­cate with the new­ly emerg­ing vil­lage at some delib­er­ate­ly cho­sen points.
The new build­ing is divid­ed into four indi­vid­ual struc­tures: chapel, church square, com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter, and parish gar­den. All struc­tures are direct­ly adja­cent to each oth­er or con­nect­ed by a wall. All areas, strict­ly sep­a­rat­ed into sacred and sec­u­lar spaces, are placed next to each oth­er. In a sec­ond step, the design links the bound­aries of these adja­cent zones. The imme­di­ate alter­na­tion between sacred and sec­u­lar spaces aims to cre­ate the most live­ly and diverse com­mu­ni­ty life pos­si­ble. As a place of the sacred world, a 13-meter-high wall enclos­es the holy site. The pre­dom­i­nant­ly closed walls cre­ate an intro­vert­ed and con­cen­trat­ed atmos­phere for the com­mu­ni­ty’s wor­ship ser­vices. The space is illu­mi­nat­ed by a sky­light strip along the oblique enclos­ing walls. The parish gar­den serves as a link between the sacred and sec­u­lar worlds and as a flex­i­ble space that can be used by both. The con­nec­tion between the chapel and the parish gar­den pro­vides a direct and cov­ered way to reach the parish hall, ensur­ing a close link between the var­i­ous rooms and functions.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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