The building is a focal point for the community and is possibly the only building of its size to be completed in Emsworth for many years. The layout is a direct response to the constraints of the site, the space requirements and adjacencies set out in the client brief and the wish to reinstate a positive street frontage to North Street – to continue the historic urban dialogue of Emsworth. The church community was heavily involved with the design process with consensus decision making at every stage.
The design has evolved with several major changes to the brief, primarily due to budget constrains but the community based ethos still endures. The resultant design has been made to offer flexible space where every room works extremely hard, having more than one target use. This has also informed the arrangement of the building programme, focusing on a central community kitchen. The flexibility of the arrangement means that the kitchen can serve the foyer space, hall or auditorium depending on how the building is being used. The church community requested subtle ways to demonstrate their spirituality including innovative use of day lighting simple cross references and small deep set coloured slot windows.
The external building envelope is a carefully composed and detailed series of masonry gable walls as the nature of the site demands that every elevation is important. The largely masonry volume appears to have been carved from one solid element. This carving exercise is influenced by the shape of the site boundary, the immediate building context and the internal space requirements.
The addition of a masonry tower to the North-West corner, closest to the North Street highway, seeks to balance the scale relationship with the existing historic high street context. The whole building is naturally ventilated with due consideration for natural light modified using architectural interventions.
Photography by Simon Kennedy
