Family Church
Snug has been helping Family Church to find and develop a new church centre for their fast growing congregation in Portsmouth. This project explored the conversion of the Grade 2 Listed Connaught Drill Hall into a mixed use church and cultural centre, providing a 1200 seater auditorium and associated facilities at the heart of the city.
A community cafe on the ground floor provides a warm welcome to the Church
Project Description
As part of the process, Snug negotiated a dynamic transformation of the heritage building through an innovative PPA with the local planning department. The new auditorium sits within the retained steel trusses, integrating with the existing fabric and supported on a new ‘tree structure’ from below. This ensured the heritage is retained whilst also allowing a dynamic external reconfiguration of the roofscape and overall appearance of the building. A new ground floor atrium contains café and lounge areas with mixed use meeting rooms, offices and ancillary accommodation above.
Cross section through the new church centre