Change or Decay?
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These are slides from a presentation given by Alex Coppock of Communion Design at the Change or Decay meeting organised by Hereford Civic Society at St Peter’s Church in Hereford on 17 April 2013. The meeting focused on the county’s pioneering work in the area of church reordering. Alex was invited to speak thanks to his work on community-based church transformations in Herefordshire such as the award-winning conversion of St Peter’s, Peterchurch, the New Bridge Community Centre, created within St Andrew’s Church, Bridge Sollars and St Peter’s Hereford, where the meeting took place.
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Change or Decay?
- 1. TRANSFORMING SPACE TRANSFORMING LIVES
- 2. Change or Decay ? Alex Coppock Communion Design TRANSFORMING SPACE TRANSFORMING LIVES
- 4. Change? ‘not leaving the tradition but driving to it’s heart’ Gerald Arbuckle, Refounding the Church
- 5. Context There are 425 churches within the Diocese of Hereford. Over 90% of them are listed Grade 1, 2* or 2. The total population of the Diocese is 285,000. National figures suggest that only 5% of people will regularly attend church. The sad truth is that the average weekly congregation for the vast majority of rural churches in Hereford Diocese is in single figures.
- 6. Impact ‘...we have this difficulty of vast spaces with really small numbers of people in.’ (CHALLENGER 12.02.11) ‘I think that what is sad, is that 2 or 3 churches over the last few years have become redundant because the cost of repairing them has just become astronomical and not achievable by those communities.’ (CHALLENGER 12.02.11) ‘Once you get to a stage where a PCC reaches that desperation with lots to do and walks away from it, it is actually too late then to do anything about it.’ (CHALLENGER 12.02.11)
- 7. Impact ‘The greatest problems arise when large buildings, built for needs which cease to exist, become vacant’. (DoE CIRCULAR 8/87 PARAS 20-21)
- 8. Vision The PCC of St Peter’s Church were approached by the local authority with the possibility of re-ordering the church and using the nave as a community centre, primarily to work with young parents and children under the Sure Start programme. After much negotiation and community consultation the PCC agreed that St Peter’s church should be re-ordered to create a sustainable, multi-use community building, designed to function as:• Service delivery centre for children’s services • Worship space for Anglican services• Community event space • Public lending library
- 9. Constraints Funds: The Church was in severe financial difficulty unable to pay its share The Local Authority had limited funds of around £250,000 that could be used. Time: The grant had to be spent within 12 months
- 10. Constraints St Peter’s Church, Founded by Normans - Listed Grade 1 Dark Cold Damp Full Used?
- 11. Understanding the building Buildings are unstable things and are not as definite as we would like. Maybe they can be best described as layers These layers are defined by the rate of change found in each one, i.e site is eternal it never changes whereas the stuff i.e. furniture that can change on a daily basis.
- 12. 2 Boxes of Delight 1 Box of Energy 2 Boxes of Stuff The Idea - 5 Boxes - 1 Surface Provide a new ‘Space Plan’ Contain the ‘Services’ Manage the ‘Stuff’ A place of worship
- 15. Where is the change? Materiality A Traditional hardwearing material that speaks of the landscape of Herefordshire. Newness Application Delight Workmanship, Contrast & Surprise
- 26. Exercise
- 27. Golden Girls
- 29. Acts of Worship
- 30. Friendship
- 31. Birthday Parties
- 32. Meetings
- 33. Music
- 34. Enterprise
- 35. Library
- 36. Credit Union
- 37. Health Clinics
- 38. ORLANDO JOPLING PLAYS BACH CELLO SUITES Concerts
- 39. SISTER MOON, MOTHER EARTH GRAHAM JONES Exhibitions
- 42. Silence
- 43. Remembrance
- 44. Result ‘This is a very good example of a church expanding its role in village life through the provision of new services - to the young and to the old. As well as transforming a gloomy, damp space, the work has redefined the churches’ role in its village. The interventions work with the grain of the building and have a simplicity, austerity and clarity which works extremely well. The architects and client have created a series of spaces in which a huge variety of activities can take place and this inventive programming will hopefully help encourage the kind of chance encounters which help make up a community. If this kind of partnership between churches and villages are reproduced throughout the country, both will thrive.’(ACE/RIBA AWARDS 2011 Jury’s citation) ‘Peterchurch you know is a great example of what can happen...Peterchurch is wonderful because it is relational.’(LOCKETT 16.02.12)
- 45. Result Transformation of a Community Viability From 30 people / week to 300 people / week Used everyday for everything by everyone Gives the Parish back its church
- 46. Evaluation 1. Belief 2.Business 3.Buildings
- 47. Evaluation 1. Belief The project promotes a theology that values relationships more than doctrine. It enables people to see the spiritual wherever they are, and helps all realise that they are never alone. The Project is concerned equally about its traditional congregation and its wider community. It allows greater emphasis to be given to forming new relationships with all. It endeavours to listen more and partner to achieve good.
- 48. Evaluation The project brought a raft of Management and Planning tools to deliver the scheme. However, when the project team moved away the PCC struggled to manage the project. This has now been addressed by the appointment of a: Project Manager Caretaker Marketing and Development Officer This highlighted a weakness in this area in Business the local church. As a company we are now seeking to develop a pilot project for two Benefices in order to provide Business and Management Coaching for two parishes, to test if improvements can be achieved and lesson’s learnt.
- 49. Evaluation We make our buildings, and then they make us. If a building is only usable in a manner that was envisaged for a Medieval or Victorian Society, in all likelihood this will not be very useful in today’s culture. Many Medieval and Victorian residential houses are still in active use. However, they have seen much change in terms of furniture, services and decoration. It would seem sensible to accept that the best manner of conserving church buildings is to keep them as churches. Good design should enable both the Building conservation of significant historic fabric and at the same time serving the needs of society that the significance directly refers to.
- 51. Belief Business Buildings
- 52. TRANSFORMING SPACE TRANSFORMING LIVES
Editor's Notes
- Hello - Alex Coppock Director of Communion Design Thank you. It is a privilege to stand on this stage in this great noble and significant building and talk about the subject you have asked me to talk about.
- I am interested in the question itself, Change or Decay. The actual question itself could be considered dualistic, a choice, one or another. It is a searching question, a logical question, a rational question, some may describe it as a ‘modern’ question, it implies a choice, a parting of the ways, however in terms of church building, for me the answer is maybe and simply... yes.
- In the first instance, I feel that to approach this subject it is sometime easier, as the theologian Richard Rohr states, to simply allow the question to come towards you, and not try and figure out if it is right or wrong but in the first instance accept it is what it is, find the Christ or maybe the answer within it. But as an architect I like this word Change. If we can understand ‘change’ maybe we can get a little more clarity on the question. As an architect thinking about change, for me it is always a question of how can we create change, a famous quote, often heard in churches and we don’t want is change for change sake. Clearly we don’t just want novelty and not all change is good. I think change actually has a huge relationship to tradition.
- Gerald Arbuckle in his book re-founding the church illustrates this point when he says change is “not about leaving the tradition but driving to its heart”. This is relevant when looking at the work that we have had the privilege of carrying out in Hereford and nationally but in particular with churches. To return to the first question, Change or Decay I want to share with you a project today which has gained much interest nationally. This has been startling for ourselves. However, I believe that it is not that our project is particularly remarkable, nor does it do anything too new that has not been done elsewhere before, but I think, what many have found relevant is the fact that the project does not involve a Cathedral or a large urban church, which has can benefit from a large mass of people living around it or passing its doors. It involves a relatively small parish church in a tiny village in a remote Herefordshire valley. But through the project the church, the village and the community that live in within the landscape defined by the valley have undergone a transformation.
- We are, I am sure very familiar with our beautiful and ancient county. The Diocese of Hereford, however is a little more expansive than the county itself, and has 425 churches. The vast majority, over 90%, of them are listed, but the total population of the Diocese is incredibly sparse, only 285 thousand. My friend who once worked in Oxford Circus tube station said, more people passed through the tube station in a single morning, than live in the whole of Hereford. Hereford however is not immune to the national decline of the regular church attendance, and this has meant that the average congregation of one of our rural churches is now generally less than 10 people.
- This is presenting real issues for the diocese. These quotes from The DAC secretary Stephen Challenger, frame the problem. As he states, “we have this difficulty of vast spaces with really small numbers of people in”. Going on, he begins to explain that impact that this is having on the church buildings. “It is sad that over the time, over the last two or three years, this has started to have a detrimental effect on churches and they are becoming redundant because the cost of repairing them has just become astronomical and not achievable by those communities. The reality of this cycle will continue and increase. This doesn’t then just affect the incredible valuable conservation asset but then goes on to have a catastrophic effect on the church community and leads to the point that: “ Once you get to a stage where a PCC reaches that desperation with lots to do and walks away from it, it is actually too late then to do anything about it.” When this happens it is a huge loss, not only for the conservation of the church building but all for the people themselves, and the wider community.
- As the original DoE CIRCULAR 8/87 circular stated, the greatest problems arise when large buildings, built for needs which cease to exist, become vacant. This is the perceived fear in Herefordshire, that we are going to have this huge overwhelming problem with a tsunami of church buildings that we need to find uses for.
- However, at St Peter’s Peterchurch something different occurred, and this can, I believe, give a clue to how to help solve this question. So.. In the beginning.... The PCC were approached by the Local Authority. This connection was developed through a fund raising bid that I was part of, with the Diocese, which highlighted there was opportunity for joint working between the Church and the Local Authority, The trust of this bid highlighted the point that the church had an parish infrastructure that could help provide services to everyone in Hereford. The need the LA had was a statutory duty to provide Children’s Services to the Golden Valley where Peterchurch is sited, and they wondered whether they could use the church as a venue. With a new Vicar in post this was a big question to ask, but quickly the church decided that this was the route that they would take, and therefore a Feasibility Study was undertaken to test if St Peter’s could act as a service delivery centre for Children’s Services, without losing its core traditional use as an Anglican Worship space. However the idea went further. In order to make the whole project sustainable the PCC wished that when the space was not being used for either children's services or church services, it could open its doors for other community activities. As part of this investigation an enquiry came from Cultural Services, whether the church could also host a Public Lending Library.
- The constraints were quite dramatic. The church had no money. The Local Authority did have some money, but the sum of money that they had, considering the constraints that were in place was quite minimal and the timeframe they gave was completely unrealistic.
- Now in many ways, especially those beginning with conservation, St Peter’s is a fantastic church. Founded by the Normans, dating back to 1087 and on the site of an earlier Saxon church, it is a 4 cell, un-aisled building, built of variegated Herefordshire sandstone with a pre-Reformation stone altar it is rightly listed Grade I. However, in practical terms, when we started to think about using it as a Children’s Centre, other attributes seemed to come to the fore. It was incredibly dark, absolutely freezing cold, the damp was rife, it was full of furniture and clutter and as such it was almost completely unusable. However we had worked on such buildings before, and seen remarkable transformations occur. I myself had given much time prior to taking on the project to thinking about how to approach such issue. For myself, the work undertaken by Frank Duffy DWEG when looking at commercial office environments in the 1970s and 80s had much to teach.
- Whereas most people consider buildings a safe haven from ‘change’, a stable mark in a changing landscape, Duffy put forward an alternative philosophy. He suggested that buildings were inherently unstable and he described them as 6 Shearing layers each beginning with the letter ‘S’. The layers that he defined, accorded to the rate of change that he found within them. Therefore, site he considered eternal, structure he defined as something in this country that last an average of 70 years, although in the case of St Peter’s, no one had let the walls know this. The skins of the buildings, in Duffy’s case generally the windows and the doors, have an expected life of 25 years. The services within a building have an average lifespan of 15 years, and then there are the more fluid elements of space plan which can move every 7 years and finally there is the ‘stuff’, or furniture, which can move every day. So in my effort to keep everything as simple as possible, a simple idea emerged,
- What if we could do it through furniture? Swap the redundant furniture for stuff that would be more useful. In the end the idea of the furniture grew in size and scope and but through the brilliance of Sinclair Johnston’s engineering they remained, as all furniture is freestanding, independent and removable. What is more simple than a box? The boxes were designed to contain and deliver the functions required.
- In total we restricted ourselves to 5 boxes which floated over a new heated surface. These boxes delivered a new space plan, contain the huge amount of servicing that we required, and on a practical day to day basis, managed the ‘stuff’. In terms of the equipment, this ensured that everything had a place and hence, when all activities were complete, we could return the space to sacred silence. The results really are quite dramatic.
- The aesthetic stems from, I believe, from a between contrast of the old and new. But where is the change? It does not come from the materials we used. We were keen for the project to grow in beauty rather than fade and having a young family myself, I am more than aware that not many materials have this ability. We needed a very hard wearing material. Oak seemed to be the natural choice. It is a traditional material used within the church already, but the new oak would act as a contrast to the almost unremitting use of stone. In Herefordshire, oak, we know, speaks of the landscape, of oak timber framed buildings. So we used a very traditional material, limiting ourselves to one material almost exclusively, in the same way the church building limits itself to the use of Herefordshire sandstone.
- The change therefore came from re-imagining a material that is known and understood to the community ancient and known but using it in an unexpected manner. Another quote, this time from Walter Brueggemann: “ What a commission it is to speak a future that none think imaginable! Of course that cannot be done by inventing new symbols for that is wishful thinking. Rather it means to move back into the deepest memories of this community and activate those very symbols that have always been the very basis for contradicting the pregnant consciousness. Therefore the symbols of hope cannot be general and universal but must be those that have been known concretely in this particular history.”
- I believe the change came from the application of that material. We used it in a very rational, almost minimal way. Our idea was simply that when you closed the doors all you would see was a series of oak boards. The board lines gave each of the boxes its detail and a dissolved their scale. The delight of this derives from the superb workmanship that was achieved by William Powell Builders. Their efforts allow the unrivalled quality and beauty of the oak to shine through. The surprise of the project is borne from notions of inside and outside. The external elevations speak of traditional material and sacred silence, while the interiors were designed to house the functions of the kitchens and the toilets and storage that were required.
- The transformation of functions which in a multi-use building have to happen instantly and effortlessly were delivered using the simple architectural device of an opening a door.
- Opening the door allows the internal function held within the box to cross the threshold and spill out to space beyond it. So as a kitchen door opens out, the space beyond becomes, for example, able to sustain a children’s party area.
- When the kitchen door gets is shut, the function of the kitchen is removed from the space and the space beyond returns
- to sacred silent space once more.
- The oak was paired with two other materials, frameless glass glazing and very minimal touches of stainless steel for fixings, ironmongery and hand railing.
- The scheme also released previously restricted views. This was a view from the Bell Ringing chamber which the balcony opened out for everyone to enjoy. Its great perspectival view from West to East, from life to death, from the sight of the rising of the sun to its setting, all the way down this un-aisled church.
- We endeavoured to have an absolute rigour about everything that we designed, from the flooring to the furniture, to enjoy the difference
- between a closed box and its opening self.
- The internal spaces were inspired by the artist Rothko. Each designed to be an experience in immersive colour, each providing a different experience. This stopped them being seen as utilitarian spaces, and more as places of delight. The real effect of the project however, is its use.
- This is a series of photographs we took over 24 hours. The use of the church has just exploded and the varieties of use that have been achieved is absolutely amazing, from exercises, including yoga and Tai Chi
- to community cafes, and these are the workers that have just run the community cafe enjoying a natter and a cup of tea afterwards, to the
- Children’s Services, run by Sure Start which just explode over the oak floor
- to the traditional Acts of Worship which continue to go on in the place week in and week out. It has become a place of the mixing of the
- community which was formerly hidden away.
- A place of children’s parties
- A place of meetings
- A place of music
- A place even of micro enterprise
- and a place of learning and teaching. The library itself has had such a brilliant effect and has worked particularly well pairing with the Children’s Services, since the library tends to attract the more mature clientele. This has been brilliantly handled by the church who have established a community cafe that happens on Wednesday lunch time. This allows the sometimes very different users of each service to meet, and form intergenerational, cross cultural relationships.
- A Credit Union is run from the church,
- and the church is also used for Health Clinics by the Health Visitor. It also has now a regular and delightful range of concerts
- and exhibitions,
- the latest being the stations of the cross by Mark Cazalet, and if you haven’t seen it, you need to rush over to Peterchurch, and see this exhibition. The works are of international quality, and quite simply take your breath away, they unnerve you, make the irrepressible, transformation ideas that are bound into our society by its tradition of the Christian faith shocking once more, they take off the shiny wrapping that we have become accustomed to in the way we devour Christmas and Easter, and make it real once more.
- And yet the church is still a place of regular silence, a place where rites of passages can be held for the local community, and it has not lost its traditional place as the centre of the community
- in terms of these important acts of rites of passage. And here I think we come to ideas of decay and memory. The church is not a novelty item, it is a point of connection to life and death, change and decay. Today we have seen Wren’s testament in stone used as a place to help people come to terms with the end of era, what other objects can provide such transcendental act?
- So the result is, that the church has been recognised, both nationally and locally, as the place where the church has expanded its provision of new services, as the Vicar has said, it is a great example of what can happen. Peterchurch is wonderful, because it is relational.
- Practically, it has transformed the community. In terms of viability, the use of the building has risen tenfold, and it is used every day for everything, by everyone. It is also, I believe, an example of a project that gives the Parish back its church. So, Why change? Simply put, it can drive to the heart of a tradition, to reignite the original purpose that these buildings were originally built to deliver. But but but, churches must hold decay too. Death is part of life. It is not a choice. We will all experience both.
- The greater question for me and maybe for all of us in Herefordshire though is how we embrace both Change and Decay, and I think church buildings are intrinsic within this debate. I have had the opportunity to consider the wider context of this question as part of a thesis that I have carried out as part of the AA School of Conservation. The question I set myself was “what was the future for the 423 church buildings in Herefordshire?” When looking at the figures alone, the question has to be asked, “How many church buildings does the Anglican church need for the Diocese of Hereford?” Compared with other denominations, the 423 stack up against 9 Roman Catholic Churches(1), 7 Methodist Churches(2) and 11 Baptist Churches(3). If one compares them against a building typology that everyone uses, for example, supermarkets, only 27(4) exist in the whole county. Obviously the current alternative to keeping a church open is closure, generally leading to private sale. If this course is pursued en masse, it is of little benefit to the public at large or to the listed buildings themselves. Another route is by gifting churches, to either the Churches Conservation Trust or the Friends of Friendless Churches. However, funds for these societies are extremely limited, as is their capability to take on many buildings. Generally, this option is reserved for buildings of exceptional nature, even if they have Grade I building designation. (1) http://www.rcdh.org.uk/parishes.html (2) http://www.herefordshiremethodists.org.uk (3) Information from The http://www.baptist-heartofengland.org/images/pdf/hfd.pdf (4) It is difficult to give an accurate figure for this, since the answer depends on the criteria used. 27 is considered to be a high figure, which only represents 6% of the total number of Anglican Churches.
- First one should acknowledge that issues of theology are everywhere. However, the term is probably too loaded, has acquired too much exclusivity and is too familiar to those within the church to be useful. Therefore, the term ‘belief’ is probably more helpful if the project is looking to include the wider community. The theological approach of the project may be is a strange area for me to talk about, However, it is difficult to understand churches without an understanding of theology and this can be a contentious subject. However, in practical terms, at St Peter’s, the project was blessed with a Vicar who had a theology, which he called Trinitarian, it was a theology that valued relationships above doctrine, it is a very open theology, it enables people to see the spiritual wherever they are, and it helps them realise that they are never alone. Where there is community, he believes there is the essence of God. This has led to a project that has worried equally about its traditional congregation, and its wider community. This has allowed a greater emphasis to be given to forming new relationships and endeavours to listen more and to partner with others, to achieve good.
- The second area which I think was particularly interesting is in terms of business. This can be seen in quite a wide way. In the way that the Vicar saw the partnership with the Library and Children’s Services as a way of managing part of the church’s responsibility to be involved with issues of justice, for the local community, and this has been highly successful. This has the implication that extended use will require different church ‘services’ to be carried out, and sees the sacred value in the work carried out by Sure Start and Health Visitors. In Simon’s view this is just as important as his Communion Service. There is also a second tier of management. The project was successful because it could bring to bear, through the professional team, through the Local Authority, all raft of management and planning tools to deliver the scheme. However, once the building project was delivered it was a struggle for the PCC to manage the project, as the PCC had very few professional people. Fortunately, this has now been addressed by the appointment of three people who are Project Manager, Caretaker and a Marketing Development Officer. However, I feel this has highlighted a weakness in this area of the local church and the training of church workers generally. In order to help and see if we can address this, and as outcome from my thesis we are now seeking to develop a pilot project for two benefices in Hereford Diocese in order to provide business and management coaching to test if improvements can be made in this area, in order to encourage wider use of church buildings and secure the long term future of the building, churches and communities of which they are an integral part. Business is how we do practical day to day stuff, and if we don’t do the stuff and do it well we will fail. Nature is brutally honest. 4 quick ideas (1) Destination Mastery (2) Delivery Mastery (3) Time Mastery (4) Money Mastery.
- A third area is of course the change to the buildings themselves. Winston Churchill’s famous saying “we make our buildings and they make us”, is, I believe, so true. Buildings are incredibly powerful objects. We just do not realise it because they sit quietly in the background and tell us exactly where we are going to do something, how we are going to do it. Many of the church buildings in Hereford Diocese were envisaged for Medieval communities and then adapted along Victorian principles. However, to make them relevant for today, some change is required. However, I believe that this project shows that this change can be limited in scope. The whole building doesn’t need to change, we can be quite discreet and minimal in the changes that we undertake, and changing the furniture and the services can have a revolutionary effect on what the building can actually deliver.
- However, if we can achieve change in these three areas it is possible to imagine a future where these buildings can remain churches. However, to do so we need to drive to the heart of the tradition, to re-imagine the church as a place for the whole community. A place that can be accessed by all. Where ideas of what is sacred and what is secular can be considered with an open mind, with the desire to see the sacredness in the everyday of people’s lives. The alternative doesn’t hold much appeal. If churches cannot once again become relevant places for the mass of the community we will have to tackle ‘The greatest problems, that which arises when large buildings, built for needs which cease to exist, become vacant’. If this happens they will cease to become church buildings. At this point much of their cultural significance will be lost, not to mention the benefit gained by public access. However I feel that the building should be tackled last. Looking at this project it started with the PCC’s realisation that partnership could be part of their theology. This partnership has also allowed the PCC to learn new ways of doing, rather than simply talking, about theology. Finally, the constraints of the project have driven a project that has been praised for its simplicity, austerity and clarity.
- So change. I believe the change required is not limited to buildings, and I believe that many of the real threats to Herefordshire churches, can come from redundant theology and an inability to manage and to do. Many that I have spoken to in the Church feel they need to rid themselves of these buildings, that the reason for the Church’s decline is to do with the excess and inflexibility of the buildings that they have been given in trust. I can sympathise with this point of view. However we can solve the technical problems that these buildings present. However all architects need visionary clients who also believe that they can deliver these projects. When we can work together to do so, the buildings start speaking for themselves, they become natural points of contact between the community and points of theology, since many who live around our churches, but would not call themselves churchgoers still call the building their own. It is not that old buildings are detrimental, they are hugely successful and hugely important to our national psyche. However, if we don’t know how to manage them and manage what we do inside them, they could fail. As I said, at the beginning. I do not believe that Peterchurch shows anything unseen, but it has renewed old ideas and spaces for today. It has also allowed some to reconsider, myself included, where change does need to occur, and that is not simply restricted to buildings but calls into question much larger and more important questions of Belief, Business and Building, but if these issues can be considered, Peterchurch is an example of a project where ideas of both change and decay can transform a whole community for good.