Mega church in Garden Grove, CA

- communication with context

as a respect to the existing slope of Meier’s church, the site design extends the landscape and benefit it as the seating area of “amphitheatre church”; main entrance is also shaped following the slope direction, visitors are intended to be received at a lowerground level. meanwhile, as a response to the “drive-in” program of Neutra’s church as well as to preserve this California auto culture, drive-in parking lots are kept at the same location. comparing to Johnson’s cystal mega church, which stands out but isolated from the site, this church chooses a low-profile gesture with the same height of Meier’s building, producing an alternative/opposite standpoint with stronger communication with the surroundings.

- surface manipulation

through growing, bending, bifurcating, twisting, fading and looping surfaces, a continuous geometrical and spatial concept is conceived and at the same time programs are consistantly arranged; massing is naturally defined with the performance of inside/outside surfaces; costumized program as chapel underneath the double hollow roof surface not only stimulate another public space but also provides an incon view from different angles; back stage is centrally oriented in order to provide an efficient staff area connecting two stages of drive-in and amphi-church.

- structural technique

the application of structural technique could be weighed as the feedback of the building scale. the mega, column-less public space is created through the subdivision of roof surface, variations of “cutting” techniques (sloping, radio, vertical, horizontal, etc.) that abstracted from the massing mean curves are applied on massing and surfaces. spaces are consistantly subdivided, following the mega vertical structure. visual/formal/sturctural performance is embedded. site design is intended to extend the building formal logic and fade out to generate 2D/3D landscape features with various textures.