KEGGENHOFF | PARTNER: St. Victor Community Centre – a buoyant setting - best architects 23

KEGGENHOFF | PARTNER

St. Victor Community Centre – a buoyant setting

best architects 23

interior work

Place

Hamm-Herringen, Germany

Photos

Constantin Meyer

Description

«Protestant, colourful, in the heart of the village»: this is the mission statement of the open-minded and committed parish of St. Victor. The essence of the design focuses on bringing powerful networking structures and relationships into the space. Newly and carefully defined sequences of rooms in the listed building are designed to facilitate dynamic social-work processes. Thus, a culture of opening up and openness is spatially created – both internally and externally. The ground floor of the community centre is divided into two sections, which are reachable via a longitudinal main axis. The entrance, office space, and a contact and service area form a front ensemble that creates easy access to the crucial community work. Attached to this are several group rooms and the community hall. As the main protagonist and heart of the building, the hall is dedicated entirely to the community. With its representative and inviting dimension, it retains its multifunctional potential. To add more space, the gallery on the upper floor was reactivated by the new concept and can now be accessed independently. As part of the extensive renovation of the listed community centre, the roof structure, which had fallen into oblivion, was rediscovered behind various layers of shoring. Statically strengthened and repaired, the originally visible diamond-shaped network of folded sheet steel is now visibly staged.