Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
- Location Milford, Indiana
- Design 1999
- Design Principal Thomas L Shafer AIA
- Project Architect Russell Walker
- Project Team Scott Crowe AIA, Benjamin Zachwieja
Located within a solitary stand of mature trees in the middle of corn and soybean fields, this project addresses the ideas of ritual, tradition, religion, and community, and attempts to coerce a union between the worldly and the spiritual.
Rising above the nearby fields, a solitary bell tower provides focus as one approaches a clearing which establishes a sacred place for the church. Inside this natural cloister, a hierarchy of lawns and courtyards, identify and establish entrance, procession, parking, and play areas. Walking paths and ramps engage a campground, funerary door, and shrine before arriving at a paved exterior courtyard that presents the church, the administration building, and the social and dining hall. Located behind a walled and slightly elevated lawn, stands the church: a simple box with large, horizontal pivot doors and thin, vertical slot windows that emit bands of light into the congregation space.
The church building is clad in stained wood siding that blends with the natural colors of the trees. Its interior is voluminous, rendered in white with a dark hardwood floor, with moveable pews arranged to accommodate ceremonies, holiday activities, and daily Mass. The administration building houses classrooms, a social and dining hall, reception, a resource library, a kitchen, receiving rooms, bathrooms, an elevator and stairs. Limestone, slates and other native stone materials pave the landscape courtyards.