Scotland

New Outreach Centre for Cults Parish Church

Cults Parish Church, Aberdeen

A £1.4 million project to transform a local church in Cults, Aberdeen into an engaging Outreach Centre, built for the community by Cults Parish Church, is inching closer to completion.

Once complete, the two-storey building – on the site of the old East Church – will include a new, attractive modern cafe, two public halls, on-site car parking, and several meeting rooms which will allow both adult and youth groups to attend simultaneously. Burns Construction of Aberdeen is the main contractor on the project and Ian Rodger Architects is providing all architectural services on the development.

The work on the community facility began last year in October and is due to be completed by September 2013. The new building will incorporate stained glass windows and will reuse granite from the two towers of the East Church building. The granite has been rebuilt to form a spine through the middle of the Outreach Centre.

A new feature added to the Outreach Centre will be the curved timber-clad segments encompassing the cafe and other facilities. In addition, the centre will also include some of the previous church’s architectural features, as well as include an added modern twist in order to make the church reach out to people of all ages within the community.

Cults Parish Church has been holding various fund-raising ventures in the community itself. Additional funding for the project was achieved through a partial sale of the site.

Ian Rodger, the Architect of the Outreach Centre, said:

“It is an honour to be able to do a building that is designed for the community of Cults. It is quite a landmark building for the location.”

Cults Parish Church was previously two churches, split into Cults East and Cults West; before it was decided that attempting to maintain two church buildings in the same community was impractical. Upon reaching this decision the scheme was put in place to reinforce worship at West, whilst extending the church’s outreach to the community at the new development.

The church is already involved in numerous activities and groups including; badminton, Brownies, bible groups, playgroup & nursery, and much more. Showing their commitment in connecting with their community, the number of activities at the church is set to increase even more thanks to the new building facilities.

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Roma Publications