INFORMATION:
Use / Church
Site / Suzuka City, Mie, Japan
Site area / 1,619.53 m2
Building area / 839.51 m2
Total floor area/ 1,588.85 m2
Building scale / 2 stories
Facility / Church, Conference area, Father’s residence, Parking
Structure system / Steel
Major materials / galvanized steel sheet, aluminum windows, concrete, plaster board, wood
Main contractor / Matsui Construction Co., Ltd.
Architects / ALPHAVILLE - Kentaro Takeguchi + Asako Yamamoto
Structural engineer / Takashi Manda
Photographer /Toshiyuki Yano
Roadside Church, located at the city having a population of two hundred thousand in Mie Prefecture, is consisted of church, conference area and father's residences. As multinational Catholics who engage in the HONDA automotive industry in this region is increasing rapidly, this church is required to provide not only a function of church but also gathering place for the foreign people. And also located at the intersection of the old highway and the new motorway, the existing church buried in the neighborhoods and hard to be recognized, the design concept is wrapping three different usage buildings by the big new one roof which reminds of the beautiful mountain range surrounds this area to make this architecture look sublime. The whole church is lifted up to gain the enough car park area for masses on Sundays, and the roof is split every five meters, parking lot module, to make high-side lit that introduce the natural light from the south into interior space where rooms of various sizes from church to bedroom are crowded. And as the piloti and the church on the second floor are connected with two gentle stairs forming corridors along with two large entrance lobbies, this architecture allows various activities flexibly like praying, gathering or dwelling not to separate from the ground floor, the city, and to be enhanced weather they are individual or collective, under the one roof. The European function married with the suburban American motorized style as a contemporary architecture in Suzuka Japan.