Project Portfolio

CHS Life Centre

Church of the Holy Spirit (CHS) has been bursting at the seams for a good decade, and when the bill came in for fixing all the roof leaks, the decision was made that the bill was too high and it was time to tackle the building project. EMI South Africa was tasked with creating a design that met the client's desire to build a church and community centre that would be an heirloom to pass down the generations - a space where community and church can meet. CHS is such an active church during the week, with various programmes, that the design had to suit their needs now, but also “waterproof” it for the future, to really create a space that impacts the community. Being Jesus to them, is living it out.

The Life Centre is a simple concrete frame structure with brick infill, and pockets of spaces for a café, office space, versatile classroom spaces, work spaces, and auditorium. The intention is for all spaces to be multi-purpose - except for the prayer chapel - the wish from the beginning was for it to serve a single purpose.

The pitched roof raising out of the flat roof is a memory of the previous ‘shed’ which the church so loved and spent so many years in.