With a site area of 6,782 square meters and a programmed building area of 66,576 square meters, the Church in Seoul is an exercise in high density design. This urban site must accommodate over 40,000 people every Sunday, the majority of whom arrive by subway. The design called for a 6,500 seat worship sanctuary, offices for the church’s global ministry, a 300 seat chapel, fellowship / classroom spaces, 250 parking spaces and a public plaza.

The design solution features the worship sanctuary underground, covered only by the public plaza, and sky above. Flanking the worship center on the North and South, the remaining program is projected upwards into two towers that are unified at three levels with a sky bridge. To give further emphasis on the sky above, the massing of the two towers and sky bridge is extruded at an angle about the elliptical plaza, and wrapped in clear vision glass to give unobstructed views inside and out.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Designed a 6,800 seat underground worship room to provide natural light through skylights and good sightlines from every seat
• Configured the skylight openings through complex 16’ deep trusses between entry plaza and worship room
• Provided a creative egress solution to meet the most stringent fire exit requirements from the 6,800 seat underground assembly space with close coordination among structure, MEP and other building elements
• Increased the seat number from 6,000 to 6,800 without impacting the worship room size
• Developed floor plans and coordinated with structure engineer to accommodate various program requirements in vertical configuration of high-rise building
• Designed a 5 level sunken garden to bring natural light all the way down to B5 levels
• Received on-time owner’s approval by providing design presentations and weekly design progress meetings