Parish Center

Villalbilla (Madrid), 2008

Atmosphere of light.

Light and ethereal matter construct a place for the assembly: the nave. Activity generates the meeting spaces: the parish rooms. Assembly and reunion merge, creating sociability areas: the halls. A diaphanous nave made of light, flexible accommodations for activities and open halls together constitute a collective space that materializes into a grounded plinth, above which a large lantern is placed —a lighting device that covers the nave and elevates it. Meanwhile, the way the church and parish center are set on the site allows for open and semi-public spaces to emerge. The temple opens up to the city and the city enters the temple.

The lantern is conceived as a double lighting system: inner skylights wrapped in a translucent outer skin. These skylights combine direct overhead lighting with the indirect luminosity provided by the tapered walls of micro-perforated panels, which filter the light that comes in through the outer skin

In this way a contemporary place for liturgy is generated: isotropy and the dissolution of directionality encourage communal gathering and individual introspection.