Not a typical church

'Respect the past' was going through our minds, when we started this project of converting a 20th century church into a home. This building had no special 'church' architecture. A typical 1970's architecture: brickwork with wooden window frames which also can be found in school and office buildings. There was also no need to change it, so we kept the outside as it was. We only added a glass facade at the garden side for more daylight and a better view of the garden. 

Floor becomes wall

In our further search for preserving typical 'church' architecture elements in the interior, we found that the rooms were also not special: exposed metal construction brickwork, wooden window frames. Only the altar, the organ, the church benches and the oak wooden flooring appeared as authentic remains of a church. But the altar, the organ and the benches were sold by the previous owner. So the only unique element was the oak wooden flooring. We decided to reuse this floor as internal wall cladding and to expose the patina of the wooden planks.

Patina 

As a special effect, the marks of the former fixtures of the church benches and the rearranging of the plank created a bamboo like pattern. When the client got convinced these visible traces on the wood could create a unique expression for his home, he started to really love it (and so did we). 

Plywood, leather and epoxy raisin

For the main interior structure. we used blank plywood panels and white stucco to match with the typical informal existing materials. To strengthen the character of the interior we added a custom designed cooking island, a leather cladded room divider and custom designed epoxy resin sinks.