Religious institution designs

You might want to take a look at John Pawson’s Cistercian Abbey at Novy Dvur in Bohemia

http://www.johnpawson.com/architecture/monastery

There is also the newly build abbey of Ste Marie Madelaine at Le Barroux near Orange in Provence.

http://www.barroux.org/

(in the background, Le Mont Ventoux famously painted by C

You probably already saw this piece, but in case not here it is:

http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2006/000119.html

The Convent of St. Joseph of the Carmelite nuns in Tallow , Co. Waterford was recently rebuilt but would not be anything on the scale of the French or American examples. Unfortunately, the web does not appear to have any photographs available.

You might also like to look at the protifolio of this well known American architect:

http://stroikarchitect.com/portfolio/index.php

This is the company responsible for the fittings in the new chapel at the Dominican Convent in Nsahville.

http://www.usagranda.com/

St Cecilia’s Convent, Nashville, Tennessee

Here is the the webpage of the architect for Nashville Dominican project:

http://www.faanet.com/

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005505250368

This may help to resolve the architect question

Dominican Nuns and their trusty architect

Many Americans attending the conference are fed up with the “wreckovations,” as they are commonly called, going on in the Church today. Conspicuous among them were a group of Dominican nuns from St. Cecilia’s Congregation in Nashville, Tennessee, dressed in the black headdresses and flowing white habits of their spiritual father, St. Dominic. Of the 192 nuns currently in their convent, 119 are 39 years or younger.

They are getting ready to build a new chapel, renovate their motherhouse and add a new convent wing because of the influx of new vocations.

“We are in a position where we have to make bed space for them,” said Sister John Mary Fleming. “But we have to renovate it in such a way that is appropriate to their spiritual formation.” She was alluding to the positive effect a beautiful building has on the soul . Traditional architecture, a nice match for their wonderful Dominican habits, is at the same time very compatible with their rapidly growing order.

To insure they got what they wanted, they brought along their architect, Marion Fowlkes. “You have to keep the customer happy,” was how he explained his reason for attending. It was amusing to see this man sitting amidst his customers, a group of Dominican nuns, during the meetings. He was the trusty architect protecting St. Dominic’s daughters from architectural absurdities.

More on the architect:
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2005/01/17/daily6.html

St Cecilia’s Convent, Nashville, Tennessee

The project manager of the restoration:

Chad Polk, AIA
2004 YAF AdCom, Public Relations Adviser

Chad Polk is a project manager with Fowlkes and Associates Architects, a 16-person firm in Nashville. He has worked on a wide variety of projects in Tennessee, including: the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations Crime Lab and Headquarters in Nashville; the Madison Branch Library in Madison; the Erlanger Medical Center Office Building in Chattanooga; the Wayne County Assisted Living Facility in Waynesboro; the historic preservation, renovations, and additions to the St. Cecelia Motherhouse Convent in Nashville; and most recently, a new high-rise criminal justice center, an inmate housing facility in downtown Nashville.

Chad began his involvement in the AIA while studying at the University of Kentucky. There, as an active member of the AIAS, he attended the 1992 International Forum, as well as several AIA Kentucky-sponsored design charrettes. Since graduating with a bachelor’s degree in architecture in 1994, Chad has served the Institute and the YAF as the president of the AIA Middle Tennessee YAF (1999-2000), the AIA Middle Tennessee Associates director (1999-2000), the AIA Tennessee Associates director (2001-2002), and the YAF Gulf States regional liaison (1999-present).

i did a convent/nursing unit for the sisters of mercy… we are just finishing up. our practice did a few convents over the past number of years too. because all the orders are getting old with very few new recruits the need for assisted living homes instead of the old traditional convents are required.

What FIN says is true of Ireland but viewing religious institutions design solely in terms of assisted living accomodation would not reflect some of the more interesting developments going in the US, France and Eastern Europe etc..

Hi

I was the architect for the new Benedictine monastery in rostrevor, Co. Down. Have a look at: http://www.benedictinemonks.co.uk/

BQ

Hi Brian

Sorry about the oversight. I would gladly have posted the link had I been aware of it.

Were the architects formally not Rooney and McConville?

Salut !!!

A recent Irish success – the Rosminian Orders hermitages in Waterford (by BatesMaher Architects)

http://ireland.iol.ie/~senan/index_files/Page516.htm

@brianq wrote:

Hi

I was the architect for the new Benedictine monastery in rostrevor, Co. Down. Have a look at: http://www.benedictinemonks.co.uk/

BQ

Any chance that you could post a ground plan as it is not available on the link you posted?

Also the new convent building by MCO Architects on the Mater site, as linked above:

It’s largely an attractive and restful building, especially up close where you get to appreciate the fine grain of the timber and white brick, but as the Times article mentions, it does create something of a brick valley along the NCR with the ghastly prison wall opposite – at least it is due to disappear in the medium term. Also though, if you’re not up close to the convent to observe the detail, at a glance it does look like an ugly 70s medical extension – the kind you expect to be demolished at any moment.

However it is so striking that you’d have to be blind not to quickly realise it is so much more than that. Elegant detailing, a striking juxtapositioning with the brooding bulk of the Mater behind, and the soft leafy setting make it a pleasure to observe amongst the hidoous buildings of the rest of the Mater complex.

New-build convent faithful to ideal of sustainability
17/6/2006

A convent building near the Mater Hospital in Dublin 7 shows how its owners, the Sisters of Mercy, have taken sustainable architecture to heart, writes Emma Cullinan

There’s a lot happening at the corner of Berkeley Road and North Circular Road, on Dublin’s northside, both in terms of construction and commotion.Traffic roars along the ring road and the pavements are busy with pedestrians. To one side is the vast neo-Classical Mater Hospital and on the other is the interminable orange wall that is Mountjoy Women’s Prison.

Sitting on this corner is a quiet building, simply shaped, with a flat roof, that is to house some of the Sisters of Mercy nuns who recently moved out of the Mater hospital building, which they founded.

The new convent is by MCO Architects, which was established by Laura Magahy and Eve-Anne Cullinan. They were already running MCO Projects (a development management company) and were previously directors of the Temple Bar urban renewal project. One guiding ethos of the practice, which is headed up by architect Phillip Crowe, is sustainability, says Magahy (as it is with many other Irish architects, not least because EU law will require it) and that is something that the Sisters of Mercy share. “We are very concerned with conservation and all aspects of energy efficiency,” says Sister Margherita, who worked with the architects on behalf of those who use the building.

The convent’s 30 bedrooms are all naturally ventilated. Air is sucked in through vents in specially designed windows, from Finland, and up out through pretty steel stacks on the roof.

This is covered in sedum plants which soak up water, helping to prevent run-off and excessive drainage, and which also provides a verdurous view down onto the building from the hospital next door.

The downpipes are positioned within the building giving the overall structure a neater look than that afforded by the plastic drainpipes descending the building next door.

The palette of materials in this neat convent is uncomplicated and pleasing: mainly timber, steel and white brickwork. The architects chose white bricks because their research found them in some subsidiary buildings in Victorian times. If the Mater Hospital is the classically dressed grandparent, this new building is the hand-crafted contemporary handbag that accessorises it.

There is a logic to the fact that the northside of the building, facing the North Circular Road, has few windows in it: design that takes account of the elements often hunkers down against the north while opening its heart out to the sunny south, which this convent has done.

But at the moment the plain wall does create a brick valley of the North Circular Road, with Mountjoy Women Prison’s tangy edifice across the road. The planners required some expression on this side of the building, hence the kink where the walls steps out. The right-angle is filled with a stained glass window by Peadar Lamb, grandson of the painter Charles Lamb and great-great grandson of Ford Maddox Brown.

Art is important to the Sisters of Mercy, too, says Sister Margherita.

This stained-glass window filters colourful light from the east into the prayer room. This contemplation space also has views out to the northern “woodland” side of the garden with newly planted trees. The aim is that these trees will gradually mature to cover the wall.

Mature trees already on the site were shown the respect of having the building bend around them. On the south side of the convent, and at the entrance on the east aspect, are hunky timber structures that provide a warmth and softness to the building. Timber was chosen for its tactile quality and ease of maintenance.

This cedar is untreated, although the timber doors that accommodate the ventilation system are treated as they were bought in specially and that’s how they come. The timber structure to the southside provides balconies and walkways out from the bedrooms and a view from which to contemplate the garden planted by Mary Reynolds – Chelsea Flower Show gold medal winner – who opts for natural, flowing planting schemes. She persuaded the architects to go for a lawn: “Which architects don’t usually like,” says project architect Gavin Wheatley. But, as he agrees, it works here.

As we stand in the pouring rain watching the water bounce off the glistening black tiles on the terrace, I can see why the nuns like their new home but Sister Margherita says that she wishes I’d seen it the day before, in the sun: “It was scintillating,” she says.

She’s happy with her new home which, despite its simplicity, she says has a luxury that she is rather embarrassed about. Certainly the interior, with its diningroom and communal facilities on one side of the L-shape and bedrooms and prayer room on the other, has that comfort of newly built institutional buildings. Yet it’s the scintillating aspects: the narrow west-facing sunroom off the dining and sitting rooms; the wooden walkways overlooking the garden, and the combination of natural materials and natural ventilation, that shows how it really shouldn’t be a big deal to slot a new building sensitively into a tight site. Such structures can have a pleasing presence and make their inhabitants happy.

Not sure if this is the right thread to post this or not….. but wasn’t there talk a while back of building a new Mosque in Cork? I believe the current one is in an industrial warehouse somewhere in Togher.

@Gianlorenzo wrote:

Any chance that you could post a ground plan as it is not available on the link you posted?

Where is the ground plan?

Here is another interesting development in Virginia, USA

http://www.hdb.com/projects/syon_abbey.html