The Penn State Pasquerilla Spiritual Center consists of a 24,000-sf renovation and 26,000-sf addition to the existing Eisenhower Chapel.

The addition is devoted to a large volume worship space with ancillary meeting rooms and service spaces. Designed in a secular style to welcome all religious faiths, the building’s flowing form evolved from a collaborative effort between architect and engineer. The worship space features a 55-foot high, curving long-span roof structure, masonry walls with oblique offsets, and three supplementary worship spaces set at varying angles to the main sanctuary. A three-dimensional finite element computer model was created to facilitate the design of an economical frame of appropriate strength and stiffness to support the building’s large open spaces.

The Penn State Pasquerilla Spiritual Center consists of a 24,000-sf renovation and 26,000-sf addition to the existing Eisenhower Chapel.

The addition is devoted to a large volume worship space with ancillary meeting rooms and service spaces. Designed in a secular style to welcome all religious faiths, the building’s flowing form evolved from a collaborative effort between architect and engineer. The worship space features a 55-foot high, curving long-span roof structure, masonry walls with oblique offsets, and three supplementary worship spaces set at varying angles to the main sanctuary. A three-dimensional finite element computer model was created to facilitate the design of an economical frame of appropriate strength and stiffness to support the building’s large open spaces.

CLIENT: James Oleg Kruhly + Associates
LOCATION: University Park Campus, PA

TYPE: Academic, Cultural, Religious, SERVICES: Addition, New Construction, Renovation, MATERIALS: Concrete, Masonry, Steel, SUSTAINABILITY: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .