Drei Architekten reused 300 sqm of the Gönninger tuff stone façade of the former St. John’s Church, to preserve the building’s history. The residential building presents itself as a simple structure with a brushed plaster finish. The “Forum of Opportunities” is located at the intersection of the two parts of the building. The building also has large openings that facilitate the continuity of its indoor activities outside.
The interior houses the heart of the evangelical church community: the double-height community hall, is designed to open onto the foyer, allowing for maximum flexibility. Vertical circulation is represented by a staircase clad in white panels that connects the entrance with the upper floors, linking to the rooms of the daycare centre, which can also be reached using the second access staircase, located in one of the corners of the floor.
On the second floor, there is a roof terrace that serves as an extension of the community space. It forms the upper closure of the shared lobby area and is enthusiastically welcomed by all users.
Johannesforum Community Center by Drei Architekten. Photograph by Zooey Braun.
Project description by Drei Architekten
Living inclusion
The Johannesforum was created in the centre of Wendlingen as a project in which inclusion is not only desired but lived. The house, which is used by two clients, is open and transparent, both inside and outside its walls. Following a report by the Evangelical Church in 2013, it was decided to replace the existing building with a new one. The Drei Architekten studio won the competition in 2015. Today, apart from the new building, only the bell tower of the Evangelical Church of St. John, built in 1960 according to the plans of the architect Ernst Rohrberg, remains standing and, despite the demolition, the church is more alive than ever.
From the beginning, the urban location was a decisive factor in the conception. On the one hand, the newly designed building forms the south-eastern edge of St. Leu la Foret, on the other hand, it continues the existing spatial boundaries and resumes the high-rise development of the neighbouring buildings on the adjacent Alb- and Uracher Straße. Located in the heart of the city centre, two separate buildings form a common courtyard and thus define the end of a neighbourhood. The new community centre of the Evangelical Church of Wendlingen houses a housing project for disabled people and a daycare centre of the BruderhausDiakonie Reutlingen spread over three floors and more than 2,300 sqm.
Old and new
The visible differentiation of the two uses and thus the two clients from the outside is not only evident in their relative position, but also in the design of the two individual buildings. Around 300 sqm of the original natural stone façade of the former St. John's Church was reused for the façade of the community centre on the square: after dismantling, material testing and cleaning, approximately 80% of the Gönningen tuff limestone could be used. The signs of use and thus the memory of the place have been deliberately preserved. Designed as a ventilated façade, the old stones, combined with the local Gauinger travertine, appear in a new form. In addition, the masonry of the attic creates a connection with the preserved adjacent bell tower, while at the same time forming a raised spatial edge for the square and providing a protective function for the roof terrace behind it. The building of the residential complexes is a simple structure with a grid-finished plaster.
A window to the city and a protected garden
At the interface between the two parts of the building, on the north side of the structure, generously glazed areas on the ground floor show the openness of the community to the city. The space facing the esplanade with its bell tower, the "Forum of Opportunities", is like a showcase for the community and offers a low-threshold offering that makes participation and inclusion –also with the city community– visible and tangible. This multifunctional room is designed to accommodate as many different meetings as possible.
It is not only its location in the city centre that makes the Johannesform an open building: both buildings have large openings to different outdoor areas, here also differentiated according to functional aspects: large glazed doors on the south façade offer visitors and residents of the BruderhausDiakonie the opportunity to enter the terraces and the adjacent gardens. In addition to this semi-public meeting garden, there is also a smaller, protected area that is separated by structural measures: hedges and fences.
Common use and functional structure
The entrance through the front courtyard as well as the multifunctional room lead to the spacious foyer. This common use surface further reinforces the inclusive spirit of the project and at the same time helps to separate the areas of use. The representative vertical access, a white-clad staircase, connects the entrance area with the upper floors. The heart of the Protestant parish is the two-storey parish hall, which was designed to be open to the foyer, thus allowing for the greatest possible flexibility. The two-storey church space, which is used for religious services as well as other church events, is adjacent to a living room on the upper floor. This offers a view into the community hall. Loudspeakers also make it possible to follow the events acoustically. Three circular skylights provide additional lighting to this intermediate area.
The BruderhausDiakonie facility is accessed via the central staircase and a second staircase with separate access. Direct access to the garden is not only on the ground floor, where the day care centre is located: on the three upper floors, south-facing loggias offer the facility's 23 residents access to the outside at any time. The care rooms are proportioned according to needs and have low parapets to allow a visual connection to the outside at all times. On the second floor there is a roof terrace as an extended communal area. In a sense, it forms the upper end of the common hall area and is enthusiastically welcomed by all user groups.
Structural details and functional inclusion
Not only was natural stone from the former St. John's Church reused for the new building. Some of the church windows were placed in the new building, creating another visible connection to the former church. In order to be able to respond as flexibly as possible to the different needs in the common rooms as well as in those used by the church congregation, individual detailed solutions were created: chairs and coat racks can be stored in the walls of the integrated cupboards in the church hall and in the "Forum of Possibilities" all materials and aids required for events, exhibitions or conferences can be integrated into the permanently installed furniture. A terrazzo floor, plastered acoustic ceilings, a well-thought-out lighting system as well as church furnishings such as the altar, ambo and cross were deliberately designed in a restrained manner, and thus offer open access to community life for all visitors. With the Johannesforum, Drei Architekten is adding another building to its own studio history: the Wendlingen urban development competition marked the beginning of the architectural studio in 1982. In addition to other buildings such as the tower house, the hall, the city library and the cultural centre "Treffpunkt Stadtmitte", another building was opened in the town centre on the banks of the Neckar in 2022.
