Carmody Groarke and Riehle+Assoziierte have won first prize to create a new campus for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Nuremberg, Germany. The new project aims to renovate and expand a 1960s brutalist office building, creating a new 38,000 sq. meter development in the city. The concept opens up the city-block by placing a new public square at the heart of the composition, presenting the Church as an outward-facing institution.
The new church campus will include two independent theological colleges, regional administration and congressional facilities for the synod of Bavaria, a 100-room student hostel, a nursery and a public chapel. The existing tower and podium building are from the extensive post-war reconstruction of Nuremberg, and they mark urban and architectural change in character from the immediately adjacent medieval walled city. The original tower and podium building will be transformed by replacing precast-concrete wall panels with new lightweight timber structures, horizontally extending the area of the existing building by 10,000 square meters.
Practice director Kevin Carmody said: "We were inspired by the Bavarian Evangelical Church’s vision to retain, extend and creatively re-purpose their existing building, reducing the environmental impact of the development whilst creating a dynamic, new institution within the city of Nuremberg. Our project seeks to improve the connection between the church and the city. While retaining as much of the existing building as we can, we are renovating those parts of the structure which are no longer fit for purpose and are adding new structures to improve how the institution can work organizationally and environmentally."
No timeline has yet been announced for the Bavarian Evangelical Church’s construction.
