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The church’s light-filled sanctuary.

permits a view into the adjoining overflow room, and through a vertically to pick up the wind load of the glass wall, and braced
window on the far side of that room to the water. with tension cables. The detailing was important to reinforce the
Opposite the main window wall, a row of small clerestory design goals of verticality and emphasizing the geometry. The
windows, each set in a coffered frame, brings to mind a ship’s mullion finish selection of a champagne bronze color provides
portholes or the clerestory windows of a Baroque church. The warmth inside the sanctuary.”
small windows “help illuminate the interior of the sanctuary The window wall’s exterior surface is an exquisitely detailed
throughout the day, reducing the dark contrast between inside and plane of glass—the equal or better of glass curtain walls on many
outside, so that the glass wall reads as transparently as possible,” new office buildings in the city. At night, with the sanctuary’s
the firm said. “The intent was to ring the ceiling with light to interior lights on, the building glows and the glass permits views
[emphasize] the lightness of the ceiling plane. The windows were from the street into the church, advertising its life and activity to
set deep and with angled baffles so as to not allow direct light or the surrounding community.
glare into the sanctuary, with the exception of a single stream at “We worked closely with the glass manufacturer” in selecting
the lowest sun angle of the year—at Christmas!” the glass for the window wall, the firm said. “The reflectivity of
Designing the glass curtain wall’s interior bracing “was the glazing is tuned so that the experience of the wall changes
challenging because we wanted to minimize the structure in an throughout the day, [shifting from being] very reflective in direct
economical way,” the firm said. “Standard bar joists were used sun in the middle of the day to almost completely clear when the

A CHURCH LEANS IN TO THE CITY 55