The new community center of the Protestant parish of Witzhelden, together with the church building and the parsonage, forms a new ensemble.

The new building is positioned with its eaves side facing the street. In terms of its height and precise placement, it defers to the church, allowing it to retain visual prominence. By cleverly using the site’s topography, the arrangement of the building
creates outdoor spaces with a variety of potential uses.

A comprehensive architectural concept is developed, in which the individual functional areas “worship space,” “community life including children’s and youth work,” and “administration” are brought much closer together as a unified ensemble.

Through the choice of materials, the church is visibly and recognizably connected to both the new green square and the new community center, forming a coherent whole.

The building has a street-level floor and a garden-level floor below, responding to two distinct topographical and open-space typologies: plaza (street-level) and garden (garden-level).

At the plaza level, the design integrates the marketplace, creating a continuous plaza surface that extends from around the church to the new community building.

While the town’s historic marketplace framed by heritage buildings remains free of vegetation except for a prominently placed existing linden tree, the area between the church and the new community center is covered with greenery, forming a blooming central space.

The natural stone paving of the new green square, laid in segmented arcs, ensures visual continuity with the existing marketplace. The pathways connecting the church to the new community center and the path to the parsonage (via the park path)
are fully accessible and as short as possible.

A rubble stone wall made of greywacke with an integrated bench on the plaza side borders the square along the street and enhances the urban presence of the free-standing church.The church‘s greywacke rubble stone base is echoed in the height and material of the wall.

The bench offers a wonderful view to the south, over the half-timbered houses of Witzhelden and into the Eifgenbach Valley, visually anchoring the square within its landscape setting.

While the street-level plaza with its natural stone paving and formal character forms a “hard” surface, the garden-level provides a “soft” counterpart.
Here, instead of natural stone, the surface is made of compacted gravel. With its lawn and play areas for children, this lower level offers an informal, largely traffic-free environment. The group rooms on the garden-level face south.