KEGGENHOFF | PARTNER
St. Victor Community Centre – a buoyant setting
best architects 23
interior work
Place
Hamm-Herringen, Germany
Studio
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.