Firm： Studio B.a.d

Type： Commercial › Exhibition Center Cultural › Cultural Center Religious

STATUS： Under Construction

YEAR： 2023

SIZE： 0 sqft - 1000 sqft

BUDGET： $100K - 500K

In April 2019 Studio B.a.d where commissioned to undertake a complete overview of the existing church and the many spaces that give enormous opportunity to add light and conversation. So that the community can reengage with this incredible structure. It is our hope and belief that the community will continue to serve the wider Community in Southsea and Portsmouth.

St Margaret's Church sits on a key corner of this artery, opposite the wonderful Highland Road Cemetery. Highland Road Cemetery, has played an important part in Southsea history with many decorated seamen and women from many historical battles. Thomas Ellis Owen sold the land to the Burial board and subsequently, designed the early phases, including the lodge and chapel.

Our first role was to listen. To listen carefully, long and hard. We held a major community engagement event where we assiduously recorded the voices of those present, but we have also made a number of small-scale visits to watch and to listen to wonderful stories. Those diverse voices have guided and informed the development of this design strategy and encouraged a reimaging of the Church for the 20th Century. At the centre of the strategy sits the concept of ‘meanwhile architecture’; a methodology through which an innovative strategy can be deliver incrementally as resources allow.

The design strategy has been to review and respond to the existing conditions which currently exist in the form of the church.

The challenge has been to look at a new design approach that could update the existing condition, to exploit the church and its relationship to the street. This proposal looks at opening up and welcoming people which currently does not have a very open, transparent and welcoming threshold, with the new copper and highly glazed entrance box.

The proposal seeks to be modest in scale and sympathetic in its architectural form and overall aesthetic.

The application illustrated also seeks to place great importance on the quality of space and light with the new roof form that has been explored, as well as the elevation treatments, looking to exploit large areas of glazing for natural day light and deep long views into the heart of the church. There has been an element of exploiting and opening up the current church floor plan to allow for long visual permeability, which is key to un locking the new welcoming vision for the church community.

Our key starting point has been to explore, the entry of embrace; A newly formed place of entry that is purposefully permeable to the urban realm. This new entry place contains not just a means of entry, but also a café and food bank and is lit at high level by a light scoop. This is a space for gathering, in which stories are told, secrets shared, wise words given. This is a space in which those in need are supported with food, clothing or words of comfort and encouragement.

This strategy is born of the words etched upon the Church Wall suggesting that Maggies is not the place for perfect souls but rather for imperfect souls.

This strategy is born of the words etched upon the Church Wall suggesting the Maggies is not the place for perfect souls but rather for imperfect souls; which led us to the words of Leonard Cohen:

‘There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets it’.

Leonard Cohen