Competition Rogatekirche

The Rogate Church stands as a mighty sign in the middle of a 1950s residential development. The church offers an introspective and protective space for the congregation of this open urban space. In addition, the church, centrally located on the busy Bad Schachener Straße and in the immediate vicinity of the Innsbrucker Ring underground station, is an important identification point in the neighbourhood.

For the new use, it is important to set a sign of openness and integration without destroying the aforementioned qualities of the architectural monument or distorting the architecture of the church. The idea of setting the volume in a comprehensive, protective setting, which the church space represents in a special way, is taken up. New, smaller rooms of the community join the church space and, unlike the previous residential use, serve the public and the common working, celebrating and praying. They form a new whole. The listed building is not altered by additions, but receives opening roofs that take into account the new functions of a youth church. Translucent, light-coloured roofs send out a shining sign of the new community into the urban space from within, over the crown of the church wall. The open roofs illuminate the youth work rooms and create new, generous, friendly spaces. In addition, the new roofscape emphasises the unifying overall concept of church, group rooms, cafeteria and offices.

The house of the new youth church is divided into several areas. The church space retains its presence and spatial quality. A structural division of the space is deliberately avoided. In order to offer smaller communities an appropriate space for devotion and prayer, a weekday chapel is proposed in spatial connection to the church space. This is separable and can also be used with the neighbouring function rooms. The rooms for group work and smaller events are organised barrier-free in the area of the former parish hall. By introducing the roof elements, it is possible to organise the group rooms on two levels with room heights that correspond to the new uses. The façade of the church remains untouched, the light for the upper floors comes into the building from above via the new roofs.

The existing inner courtyard is spatially reinterpreted and significantly upgraded by a roof. It serves as an unheated, two-storey, connecting interior space tempered by solar gains - is the entrance and at the same time a year-round protected place of communication for events and as a cafeteria.

The existing windows in the cloister-like gallery are extended and the gallery thus becomes part of the courtyard space. The inner courtyard extends into the building. The ground-floor extension in front of the church is demolished. This gives the church a clear presence towards the inner courtyard. The two (northern and southern) areas of the offices on the upper floor are connected by a new building element above the entrance. The tower is also accessed via this "bridge". The offices are located in the upper area. Each of these opens up to communal areas for living and communicating.

The roof elements are designed as a steel frame construction with highly insulating glass. They have an external fixed sunshade made of white powder-coated expanded metal. The closed roof surfaces made of white powder-coated metal insulation panels are fixed to the existing walls. There are no additional loads.